Having your head read in Huron: The ‘science’ of phrenology

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Phrenology was the Victorian “science” of determining one’s character traits by reading the bumps on one’s head. Its enthusiastic proponents believed that “phrenology, in reference to education, politics, medicine, criminal jurisprudence and prison discipline,” would prove conclusive “in all the solutions of life,” according to an 1848 article in the Huron Signal. “Bumpology,” as phrenology was nicknamed, could be used to determine all aspects of human behaviour.

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Thomas McQueen, editor of the Huron Signal, was a devout believer in phrenology. His paper in 1848 carried a lengthy 13-part series of articles advocating the merits of phrenology. McQueen himself lectured in Goderich on the uses and merits of the “science” in solving the era’s social problems.

In 1866, phrenology had become so embedded in the popular imagination that one correspondent to the Signal suggested that all candidates for council submit to a phrenological examination to test their fitness for office. It was a suggestion that met with McQueen’s approval and a significant number of voters. Although many have thought before and since that candidates seeking elective office should have their heads read, there is no evidence that any local candidate ever submitted to an examination.

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The new “science” attracted ambitious young men to study phrenology at the American Institute of Phrenology on Broadway in New York. Students underwent eight months of instruction learning that phrenological science was based on the concept that the brain was a composed of several separate organs, each of which regulated a specific behavioural function or character trait.

Since some mental organs in the brain are larger, it followed that those larger organs must be the dominant traits. When the bone cover over the brain’s organs hardened in infancy, phrenologists believed that a careful reading of the skull’s surface could be used to diagnose an individual’s character.

Of course, phrenology was all proved to be nonsense by the medical community. One former phrenologist wrote in the Huron Signal in December 1862 that it was a “vagrant science” and a “humbug,” and cynically claimed the only good it did was in lining his pockets with a few dollars after a couple of hours of readings.

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By the mid-19^th century, phrenological exhibitions waned in popularity, but belief in the “science” remained strong in rural areas like Huron. Phrenologists, like “Prof” Alexander Galbraith, who claimed to have lectured to packed houses in the great cities of Great Britain, Europe and Americas, eked out a modest living demonstrating his cranial readings to smaller and smaller crowds in smaller and smaller towns.

The Expositor reported in July 1870 that Galbraith had lectured on the “Truths of phrenology to large audiences” in the Cranbrook school house. Galbraith, the once famous phrenologist, spent the last years of his life eking out a modest living lecturing at such venues as the Kinburn Temperance Hall and one-room schoolhouses throughout the county. A late-in-life portrait of Galbraith in the Brussels Post described him as “too fond of the glass that cheers and also inebriates” who could have been one of the “wealthiest men in the country” if he had taken proper care of his finances. The Post lamented that this visit to a Grey Township school would be the last time he would be in the area to feel “the bumps of the young folks.” Indeed, he spent his last years living out of a suitcase wandering from hotel to hotel until he died in obscure poverty in the 1890s.

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Galbraith had competition as other phrenologists moved into the area. In 1871, the phrenologist “Giboalog” gave readings at Gofton’s Hall in Wroxeter. Like all serious men of science, he was also a ventriloquist and gave his readings with the help of a dummy. George Cozens of Wingham promised to give phrenological readings and a chart of the brain for just 25 cents in 1889. If one was reluctant to visit Cozen’s home beside the CPR tracks, one could send only a photo for a reading.

In August 1898, Madame Jabarr gave readings in phrenology combines with palmistry at the Central Hotel in Exeter and the Clarendon Hotel in Clinton. She promised to give accurate readings on “what vocation a person is adapted for in life and truthful advice to young people on courtship, love and marriage,” according to the Clinton New Era.

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Some phrenologists, like Professor Galbraith, were no doubt sincere in their belief that they were practising a legitimate science. Others like Cozens, Giboalog and Madame Jabarr may have believed in what they were doing, but used carnival tricks to attract and entertain paying customers.

Some, like “Professor” Angus Johnson, was an outright scoundrel. In July 1884, Johnson held forth on the Market Square in Goderich where he delivered a series of lectures not just on phrenology but his disdain for temperance, “the Salvation Army, the reputation of ministers, public morality and other matters,” reported the Signal. He drew a lot of support in Goderich until it was learned he had just escaped from a Dresden gaol, where he was awaiting trial for a series of petty offences. Professor Johnson’s lecture series ended abruptly when a Dresden constable clapped him in irons and escorted the “notorious” phrenologist on the train back to gaol.

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Despite phrenology’s waning popularity as a science, it still held sway among educators who thought it might determine one’s academic ability. At least three Huron County teachers, W. Fried of Dashwood, George Brown who taught school at Hillsgreen, and Wingham teacher D.C. Munro attended the Institute of Phrenology and became “professors” of the science in the 1890s.

In May 1899, at the East Huron Teachers’ Association meeting at the Clinton Collegiate, Dr. J. W. Shaw “gave a very interesting talk on overstrain and underpower of the brain.” The Wingham Times said that Dr. Shaw “threw a great deal of light on quack phrenology showing that there is little or no connection between the shape of the brain case and the degree of intellectual development.” Yet, the following year, the Wingham public school principal argued that “phrenology was a pure science” that emphasized the shape of the brain and its relationship to intellectual development.

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In 1906 and 1907, “Professor O’Brien”, the last “great” phrenologist, travelled through the principal towns of Huron delivering lectures with his wife, Countess Bonvini. In Seaforth, in October 1906, the Huron Expositor lectured at Cardno Hall, where Professor O’Brien’s chart readings were interspersed with vocal solos by his wife, who was said to be an accomplished Italian opera singer. The Expositor approvingly noted the professor “will readily convince you that his knowledge of phrenology is the outcome of study and research” and “entirely devoid of anything tending towards the fame of fraud. The professor and his wife typically stayed at local hotels where they accepted appointments for anyone wishing to have their skulls read for a modest price.

Professor O’Brien was the last of the great phrenologists to travel through Huron, as the “science” was thoroughly unmasked as a pseudoscience that had no place in determining one’s character. Phrenology has been consigned to an all but forgotten relic of Victorian novelties that defined the social character of the era.