The after-death adventures of William Palmer’s face
IN 1856 Rugeley surgeon William Palmer, the infamous ‘Prince of Poisoners’, was found guilty of murdering his horse-gambling associate, John Parsons Cook, and was the chief suspect in a string of other suspicious fatalities.
Sentenced to death, the Rugeley surgeon met his end outside the gates of Stafford Prison on 14 June 1856.
The story goes that shortly prior to his execution Palmer was brought some wine. He blew the froth off the top, remarking that bubbles gave him indigestion if he drank in a hurry.
To the disappointment of the 30,000 spectators who had crowded into Stafford to watch the execution, Palmer did not struggle on the gallows and died quickly. Having been left to ‘swing dismally in the wind and rain’ for a full hour after the execution (the usual practice for public hangings), Palmer was cut down and brought inside the prison and his body was stripped naked.
He was not, however, forgotten: two gentlemen with a particular interest in making Palmer’s intimate acquaintance arrived at Stafford prison.
Mr William Bally, of Manchester, and Mr Frederick Bridges, of Liverpool, were experts in the now-debunked science of phrenology – the theory that suggested a person’s character and criminal inclinations could be ‘read’ by studying the shape of their head. Both men had permission to take a plaster cast of Palmer’s head, ostensibly so it could be further studied for ‘scientific’ purposes.
Although Palmer had had his hair cropped close just before execution – in protest that he was not allowed a comb in prison – his head was shaved post-mortem to make the casting process easier. William Bally was up first, and despite later claims to the contrary in the press, managed to take a good mould of Palmer’s entire head as his body lay stretched out on a joiner’s workbench in the prison ‘dead house.’
Frederick Bridges was also able to make a successful cast, and both ‘experts’ proclaimed to an assembled crowd of prison officials, police officers and local men of medicine that Palmer’s head proved without a doubt that he was a serial poisoner – ‘the head was altogether of the worst kind.’ Bridges further commented that ‘a head of this class would sacrifice family, friends and indeed a whole kingdom to satisfy selfish objects.’
Despite the ‘noble scientific aims’ of making their death masks, it was not long before both men were displaying their respective plaster casts in their home cities.
Within a week of the execution, William Bally was exhibiting his ‘Palmer’ at the Manchester Exchange – admission fee 1 shilling – with plans to strike a small commemorative medallion based on the murderer’s head.
Not be outdone, within a month of the execution, Frederick Bridges was exhibiting his cast in the Liverpool Phrenological Institute – admission sixpence, with Bridges offering a series of
‘Experts’ claimed Palmer’s head proved without doubt he was a serial poisoner
lectures as part of the price.
Bally had taken his Palmer death mask on the road by then; displaying it in Buxton Market Place at the end of July 1856. A fortnight later, it was at the Glasgow Royal Exchange – ‘Everybody ought to see the cast of William Palmer, the Rugeley Murderer!’ screamed the newspaper advertisement.
In the meantime, Frederick Bridges had created at least one half-head (profile) version of his Palmer death mask – possibly as a way of selling copies that were easier to produce than the whole head. One such half-mask ended up in the possession of Thomas Woollaston, a Rugeley policeman who had been involved in the arrest and execution of Palmer. Bridges, it seems, did produce copies of the full death mask for sale too.
One copy ended up in a very dubious display laid on for the benefit of visitors to the Wilmslow Races in Cheshire, at the beginning of September 1856. According to an article in the Manchester Examiner, John Fletcher, landlord of the King’s Head, Wilmslow, ‘has been fortunate, through a friend, of procuring in Liverpool a cast of the late William Palmer’s face and features, forming an exact model of the culprit, dressed in corresponding clothes, as he appeared on the morning of execution.’
Landlord Fletcher also secured the services of George Smith, the Dudleyborn hangman who had dispatched Palmer, and here things take a very dark turn: ‘There will be the scaffold and beam, with a company of trained officials, who will perform and go through the ceremony of Hanging, twice each morning of the races. Performances commencing at ten and twelve o’clock – admission 1 shilling each, with sixpence to be returned in refreshments.’
The Manchester Examiner bluntly comments that ‘the casts were obtained from Liverpool, and were, of course, taken at Stafford on the pretence of being used for scientific purposes! It is high time to put a stop to this species of phrenological humbug.’
Bridges’ mask was used by a wax sculptor named Hathaway, who opened his waxwork exhibition in Jersey’s Hotel de Ville in June 1860. The Jersey Independent and Daily Telegraph reported that ‘a correct likeness of the criminal William Palmer, procured at great expense from Mr Bridges’ would be displayed alongside an effigy of Palmer’s gambling victim, John Parsons Cook, in a ‘brilliantly illuminated’ suite of rooms.
This was not the first time the death mask had been used as an artistic model for Palmer – a portrait of the ‘Prince of Poisoners’ by Joseph Simpson, often cited as the most accurate rendition of his features, is said to have been taken from one of the casts.
After that, interest gradually waned and the death masks experienced mixed fortunes in their travels. William Bally’s cast ended up at Winchester Prison in the late 19th century, alongside 28 other death masks of hanged criminals. It is not known why this collection ended up at the prison – perhaps it was used for phrenology lectures.
By the end of the 19th century, the prison gave the death masks to Winchester Museum, in whose collections Palmer’s head remains to this day. The whereabouts of the Bally cast was only established locally in 2002, and two years later the cast was borrowed from Winchester and displayed as part of an exhibition at Stafford’s Ancient High House.
Frederick Bridge’s full head cast appeared as a photograph in George Fletcher’s
1925 biography, The Life & Career of Dr William Palmer. It was re-discovered 25 years later, alongside several other death masks and casts of skulls, hidden in a boardedup cupboard in the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society Hall, Falmouth. The cast had been inscribed ‘W. Palmer, executed June 14, 1856’ and was signed by Bridges.
The head was also covered in strips of paper ‘bearing anatomical notes,’ according to the Western Morning News. The article suggested that the collection of casts might have once belonged to a doctor and had been given to the Polytechnic Society for anatomical or phrenological lectures. Upon their rediscovery, it was decided to give the entire collection on permanent loan to the Falmouth School of Arts (now part of Falmouth University) ‘for the use of the students.’ Unfortunately, the trail goes cold.
However, the half-mask that policeman Thomas Woollaston obtained became a family heirloom, and was passed down through several generations. The death mask was apparently ‘kept under Grandma Woollaston’s bed’ for some time, but by the mid20th century it had been donated to the William Salt Library in Stafford.
In 1995, the mask was loaned to the County Museum and put on display at Shugborough, where it was at the centre of a ‘mystery’ two years later.
According to the Rugeley Post, under the headline ‘The Tears of a Poisoner?,’ a strange area of moisture had appeared around the mask in an otherwise dry display case. Fabric beneath the mask had turned damp and musty, and the reporter wondered whether Palmer’s mask was weeping with regret for his crimes. Sadly, the true cause was rather more mundane – plain old condensation.
Today, Palmer’s half-mask is kept in the County Museum collections in Stafford, and occasionally revealed to visitors during store tours. It has not subsequently ‘wept’!