Tragic Elephant Man wouldn’t live to see 30
He has gone down in history as The Elephant Man, but until the age of five, Joseph Merrick looked like any of his peers.
Alas, around then, the first signs of his growth disorder began to manifest themselves.
Born on August 5, 1862, in Leicester, Joseph was a happy, healthy child until patches of lumpy, discoloured skin began to appear on his body.
He would pass away at just 27, on April 11, 1890.
Incredible as it might seem, when Joseph’s growths started to show, his parents thought they were the result of his mother, Mary Jane, having been scared by a stampeding elephant while pregnant.
Their son actually had an extremely rare congenital disorder called Proteus or Wiedemann syndrome.
He was initially able to lead a relatively normal life and went to school, but his condition worsened.
As if he didn’t have enough to contend with, Joseph lost his mother when he was just 11.
Mary Jane had cared for him, and had been thehe only one Joseph had a close ose bond with, but in 1873, she died of bronchial pneumonia.
He would describe her passing g as “the greatest sadness in my life”. But Joseph would suffer more heartache when his father remarried just a year later.
He left school at 13 to work as a door-to-door salesman – a sack covering his facial disfigurement disfigur – but growths on hhis hand meant he w was soon unable to w work.
His father severely beat him, then cast h him out on to the st street, angry that he wasn’t wa able to make any money. Afte After a time living in a workhouse, Joseph decided, aged 21, to join a freak show.
Known as The Elephant Man, he fascinated the visitors who were amazed by his head, which eventually had a circumference of three feet.
Joseph, suffering more as he got older, spent the rest of his life in a hospital.
Having grown accustomed to sleeping propped up, because his head was so heavy, he lay down one night to rest.
The pressure from the weight of his head dislocated his neck, killing him.
Joseph has since been the focus of various films and plays.
In David Lynch’s The Elephant Man in 1980, he was portrayed by John Hurt, while Bradley Cooper starred as him in a well-received 2015 West End play.
In 2016, a book, Joseph: The Life, Times And Places of The Elephant Man, by Joanne Vigor-Mungovin revealed Joseph’s ambition was to be self-sufficient and not survive on charity.