How Times readers saved the Elephant Man

It's well known that Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man made famous in John Hurt's 1980 film, spent his last years in the relative security and comfort of the London Hospital after a desperate life in freak shows. What I didn't know was that his redemption was funded by the generosity of Times readers.

In December, 1886, the Chairman of the London Hospital, F. C. Carr Gomm, wrote to The Times:   

There is now in a little room off one our attic wards a man named Joseph Merrick, aged about 27, so dreadful a sight that he is unable even to come out by daylight to the garden.

He describes how Merrick was spotted 18 months before by Frederick Treves, a surgeon at the hospital, being exhibited in a room on the Whitechapel Road. This dubious form of entertainment was banned in 1886, and Merrick went to Belgium to try to earn a living. He managed to save £50 but was robbed, and returned to England destitute. With great difficulty he made his way to the London Hospital, hoping to contact Treves.

Carr Gomm was a gifted narrator, and his letter tells the story in heartrending detail before getting to the nitty gritty.

He ought not to be detained in our hospital (where he is occupying a private ward, and being treated with the greatest kindness - he says he has never before known in his life what quiet and rest were), since his case is incurable, and not suited, therefore, to our overcrowded general hospital ; the incurable hospitals refuse to take him in even if we paid for him in full, and the difficult question therefore remains what is to be done for him ...

Terrible though his appearance is, so terrible indeed that women and nervous persons fly in terror from the sight of him, and that he is debarred from seeking to earn his livelihood in any ordinary way, yet he is superior in intelligence, can read and write, is quiet, gentle, not to say even refined in his mind ...

He can but hope for quiet and privacy during a life which Mr Treves assures me is not likely to be long. Can any of your readers suggest to me some fitting place where he can be received? And then I feel sure that, when that is found, charitable people will come forward and enable me to provide him with such accommodation.

He also makes clear that this was no ordinary appeal:

Some 76,000 patients a year pass through the doors of our hospital, but I have never before been authorized to invite public attention to any particular case, so it may well be believed that this case is exceptional. Any communication about this should be addressed either to myself or to the secretary at the London Hospital.

Five days later, this notice appears in the classified columns:

London Hospital, Whitechapel Road, E. The House Committee desire gratefully to acknowledge, among many other anonymous donations, the receipt of £5 from G.R., for Joseph Merrick, the elephant man.

And on January 5, Carr Gomm wrote again, another masterpiece of tear-jerking, to report that Times readers had contributed enough to keep Merrick at the hospital for four or five years, and that the governors had decided to allow him to stay where he had settled so happily.

His generous supporters will be glad to hear of our decision, and Merrick has desired me to convey to them his most grateful thanks, and to say that he is deeply sensible of their kindness and that he has never had so happy and peaceful a Christmas time as he has had now. He is newly clothed and well supplied with books and papers, while the kind care of the sister and nurses, with visits from the chaplain and others, relieves the monotony of his existence. One lady has most thoughtfully engaged to provide for his being taught basket-making, to give him some definite occupation, and I hope at once to start this work.

The Times donations were sufficient, as it turned out, to keep him for the rest of his life. He died in 1890 and Carr Gomm wrote again to the Editor:

"I wrote to you and from that moment all difficulty vanished ... It was the courtesy of The Times in inserting my letter in 1886 that procured for this afflicted man a comfortable protection during the last years of a previously wretched existence, and I desire to take this opportunity of thankfully acknowledging it."

In the film, it is suggested that Queen Victoria donated the funds, but Carr Gomm doesn't mention any royal intervention in his letters. Can anyone clarify?

Comments

[Kate Thompson]

Anyone interested in the 'Elephant Man' should read Michael Howell & Peter Ford, 'The True History of the Elephant Man', the definitive history which ran to three editions.

[Soreofhing]

The website www.freebmd gives details of Joseph Merrick's death which was registered in April-June 1890 in Whitechapel:

Joseph Merrick, age 28, Vol.1c, page 108
Armed with this information, anyone can request a copy of Joseph's death certificate from the General Register Office in Southport, and which costs 7 pounds by post.