BIRTH OF JOSEPH MERRICK 

 Joseph Carey Merrick, often called John Merrick, was a man primarily known for his severe physical deformities.

Joseph was first exhibited at a freak show under the stage name "the Elephant Man".

After meeting Sir Frederick Treves, Merrick then went to live at the London Hospital in Whitechapel....

 Born on the 5th August 1862, Joseph Merrick was a healthy baby.
When he reached the age of 21 months, his lips began to swell.

A bony lump then developed on his forehead, which later grew at an alarming rate.

The skin on his face started to grow, and became very loose.

By the age of five, Merrick was showing more extreme signs of deformities.
His right arm was at least twice the size of his left arm, and his feet were also enlarged and deformed.

As he grew older, his skin thickened and he developed several large growths on various parts of his body.

 Legend says that Joseph's mother Mary Jane, was frightened by an elephant she’d seen at a fairground, while she was pregnant.
This caused Merrick's deformities.

In reality, there are two medical conditions that have been considered for Merrick-

Proteus syndrome- a rare disease that causes overgrowth of the bones, as well as the skin.

Neurofibromatosis- a genetic disorder that causes tumours on nerve tissues, which then spreads to the brain and the spine.

 His mother died of pneumonia when Merrick was just 11, and he was said to be devastated.

Merrick’s father remarried, but his new stepmother didn’t want Merrick in the house.

She demanded that the child leave school at 13, and earn a living.

His Father, was said to be a very cruel man, beating the boy if he came home with no money.

His stepmother would refuse to give the boy any food, until he’d made enough money to pay for his keep.

Merrick managed to find a job at a cigar shop.
However, he had to leave when the fiddly job of rolling cigars with his large right hand, became too difficult.

Merrick was so miserable with the way he was treated at home, he ran away several times.

At 17, and with no way to support himself, Merrick was forced to go to the dreaded Leicester workhouse.

Merrick would spend five years, in what was said to be a hellhole.

His facial deformities led people to see Merrick as a “monster” and a threat to society.

But the opposite was true.
He was said to be a kind and gentle man, just trying to survive in a society that didn’t care for him.

 People believed Merrick was mentally handicapped, but that was far from the truth.
He had managed to teach himself to read and write.

He wasn’t able to speak due to his facial deformities, and he struggled to eat, he had absolutely nobody to help him.

 With nothing to hold him to anyone, Merrick decided to try and make money from his disability, by joining a circus.

Merrick contacted showman Tom Norman, and went to London to star in his freak shows.

During the mid-late 1800s thousands of Londoners would flock to freakshows to gawk at the people modern society had rejected.

The disabled, the fat, the tall, the bearded ladies, Siamese twins.... but nobody had a person onstage quite as incredible as ‘The Elephant Man.’

 Merrick was promoted as being ‘half man, half elephant,’ but the only similarity he had to an elephant, was the skin protruding from his face - like a trunk.

On stage, Merrick displayed his increasingly misshapen body.
He had become a huge ‘freak show’ sensation.

Sadly, his health was rapidly declining.

As Merrick was working on the sideshow, he lived near the London hospital.
Thankfully, he came to the attention of surgeon Frederick Treves.

Treves was intrigued with the ‘Elephant Man’ and his story.
Treves asked if he could inspect Merrick’s body.

Merrick agreed and Treves found Merrick’s deformities were incredibly extreme.
There were bony protrusions and soft-tissue swellings covering much of his body, and he was also suffering from physical and psychological pain.

 Merrick's body was riddled with tumours.
His leg had worsened to a stage where he could only walk with a cane.

The times when Merrick went outside, he’d cover himself with a cape and hood, in a desperate attempt to avoid people staring at him.

By the age of 24, Merrick’s health had deteriorated so bad, that Treves made it possible for Merrick to live at the hospital.

Treves also set up a fund for people to donate to the special medical care Merrick required.

 During the four years Merrick spent at the London Hospital, Merrick was visited by several famous people.
These people were keen to show their support for the man that so many had used for entertainment.

By then, public opinion had turned against freak shows, which were seen as unnecessary and cruel.

On 11th April 1890, Joseph Merrick died in his hospital bed.

It’s believed he’d tried to sleep lying down on his pillow, which caused his head to fall at an angle that dislocated his neck.

The official cause of death was recorded as asphyxia.

 Merrick's final wishes was to leave his body for research.

He hoped by doing this, people born like him could be helped in the future.

Whilst some of his remains were buried at the City of London Cemetery and Crematorium in Newham, his skeleton was preserved at Queen Mary University of London.

The skeleton on display at the hospital museum is an exact plaster replica.

Although Merrick's skeletal remains are still held within the anatomical section - out of respect, they are not on public display.

❌ A REPLICA of Merrick's skull.
Queen Mary University of London.