Death Masks of Worcester Criminals

These death masks are reputedly of hanged Worcestershire prisoners of the early 19th Century. Convicted prisoners were hanged in the Gaol and their bodies taken through an underground tunnel running from to the Worcester Royal Infirmary to be anatomised by staff and students. We have neither the names of the men represented, nor the details of the phrenological studies made on the masks, and so are left with this tantalising and somewhat macabre glimpse of 19th Century medical 'science' in Worcester. Death masks of criminals were made across the Western world during the early 19th Century. The aim was to attempt to make connections between the physical features of the head and the nature of the crimes committed in order to be able to predict future criminal behaviours in others. Phrenology later gained sinister connotations alongside its brief popularity, with some advocates of this pseudo-science applying its theories to race.