Literature

Phrenology- a Victorian obsession?

In 1824, George Combe’s ‘Elements of Phrenology’ was published. Phrenology was the identification of an individual’s faculties by feeling the shape of the skull. It was argued by Franz Joseph Gall, an Austrian physician, along with Johann Spurzheim that mind and brain were connected, in a way that, different characteristics of mind, would give different…

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Charles Dickens – supporter of Ragged Schools

In 1843, Charles Dickens visited the Field Lane Ragged School and was so shocked and moved by what he saw there, he decided to write a pamphlet about it. Instead though he penned ‘A Christmas Carol’ as he thought he could reach more people through a novel. An intriguing connection is that John Pounds set…

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