Museum history
The medical student walks reverently across the parquet floor: hanging gas lamps spill pools of light onto the polished wood, and as his shadow swims through them he hears the echoes of his footfalls rise purposefully to the lantern ceiling. He passes shelf after shelf of potted specimens, golden light bouncing from the curved glass like wolves eyes in the moonlight, until at last he locates the pot he is seeking. Carefully he picks it up and examines the delicate minutiae of the specimen, recording each detail deftly with his pencil, softly scratching the paper with the lead, the quick strokes the only sound in this silent, cavernous museum….
Images of Barts Pathology Museum - courtesy of The Royal London Hospital Archives
The way medical students are taught may have changed since the heyday of the Pathology Museum, but the building itself has lost none of the drama. The architect Edward I’Anson oversaw the completion of the museum in 1878 and it was opened in 1879 by the Prince of Wales who later became Edward VII. Although built in a similar style to many other medical museums of the era, it differs in that it is an open plan space of approximately 28 by 11 metres square. It is made up of 3 mezzanine levels each around 8 metres high, all linked by a beautiful spiral staircase. After an illustrious history informing the careers of such famous names as James Paget, Percival Pott and his student John Hunter - among others - the museum was awarded Grade II Listed status in 1972. However, after the opening of a new Pathology department in 1909 elsewhere on campus, and an extension for Clinical Skills teaching being built in the 1970s (The Robin Brook Centre), the old Pathology Museum gradually fell into disrepair.
The neglect is unusual in comparison with the activity of similar university medical museums, especially considering the importance of the specimens housed herein. For example, the collection contains the skull of John Bellingham, the assassin of Prime Minister Spencer Percival, who was subsequently ‘hanged and anatomized’ for his crime in 1812. The infrastructure of the museum began to suffer, as did the collection itself, and it has taken many years of grant applications and discussions for the management to be able to fund a technician to conserve the specimens and breathe life into this grand but crumbling relic. In 2011, grant funding was provided by The Medical College of Saint Bartholomew's Hospital Trust, a registered charity that promotes and advances medical and dental education and research at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry.
The museum itself is fascinating, as is the collection, and there is an interesting history attached to nearly every object. For example, St Bartholomew’s Hospital is the location Sir Arthur Conan Doyle chose for his characters Holmes and Watson to have their first fortuitous meeting. A plaque commemorating this event hung on the museum office wall since the 1950s.
Amongst the many thousands of specimens is the first successful ovarian cyst removal (in 1836), examples of Victorian occupational diseases such as phosphorous necrosis of the jaw, "Sweep's Cancer" of the scrotum, and carcinoma suffered by early X-ray technicians. There are unusual surgical procedures such as lobotomy and trephination, and rare diseases like leprosy and bubonic plague. The oldest specimen dates from 1750, and is a hernia removed and prepared by Sir Percival Pott.
Public engagement
The organisation of the specimens at Barts has created a similar lay-out to that of the Berlin Medical History Museum in which only the ground floor gallery is open to the public and contains the Historical Collection, with the upper galleries reserved for teaching and for allied health professionals. The extensive public engagement programme has led to the museum being a winner (2017) and finalist (2019) of QMUL's Engagement and Enterprise Awards, and contributed substantially to QMUL receiving the highest accolade - Platinum - from the NCCPE (National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement) in 2021.
Media
The museum is now frequently used as a subject for articles, and a location for filming documentaries: it has featured in numerous national and international TV shows and publications and been visited by Ian Hislop, Tony Robinson, Lucy Worsley, and James May amongst others
Awards
With an entry in the London Hidden Interiors book which listed the museum as one of London’s “Hidden Treasures”, a nomination for a Museums and Heritage Award, and the ongoing pursuit of Museums Association Accreditation, the future looks set to be exciting.
This page updated January 2024 by C. Valentine