By the end of 1889 and continuing into early 1890, a deadly disease was spreading quickly throughout Europe. In the winter of 1889, a pandemic of the Russian flu swiftly crept across the continent, infecting four million people and causing the deaths of 27,000. On January 8, 1890, at the London Hospital, where Joseph Merrick lived, about 500 patients were seen for influenza-related illnesses.

 

Joseph had returned to London from his Northamptonshire holiday, and although he seemed healthy and refreshed, it was clear by the end of 1889 that his health was failing.

His daily routine was becoming increasingly difficult; he was constantly getting bronchitis, and his heart was significantly weaker. The growth removed from his mouth at the Leicester Union Infirmary in 1882 had started to spread again, obstructing his speech and eating. Joseph's head had increased in size so much that he could only just hold it up.

He found it essential to rest and preserve his strength, making it his routine to stay in bed until noon. Joseph liked to spend his afternoons reading and writing, and often took walks in the hospital gardens in the evening. However, it was clear his health was deteriorating quickly. Joseph had greatly benefited from the religious guidance provided by the Reverend Tristan Valentine, Chaplain of the London Hospital. He was motivated to attend mass and take his Holy Communion in the vestry of the chapel. There, Joseph could hear the service and participate by reading the psalms and appointed collect of the day in his prayer book. Dr William Walsham How, the then suffragan Bishop of East London, had already privately confirmed Joseph into the Church of England in the early years of his stay at Bedstead Square.

Joseph may have enjoyed a last evening walk in the gardens of the hospital four days after Easter, on the evening of 10 April 1890. He would have taken in the evening scents of the sun-kissed sweet pea and admired the delicate peonies in captivating hues of white, creams, pinks and reds as he saw his last sunset on that chilly but dry spring evening.

 

The next morning, Miss Emma Ireland, the nursing sister of Blizzard Ward at the London Hospital, who had been acquainted with Joseph for the four years he had been staying there, paid him a visit to see how he was doing that morning. She observed that Joseph seemed in his ‘usual health’.

 It had been ten years since Joseph had left his Uncle Charles' home in Churchgate, Leicester, and took the mile-long walk up to the Leicester Union Workhouse, and six years since he had written to Sam Torr, the proprietor of the Gaiety Theatre on the corner of Leicester's Gladstone Street to suggest he exhibit himself as a freak show, forever changing his life.

 Joseph had travelled extensively throughout the country, moved to London and met Tom Norman, the Silver King himself. Norman was possibly the only real friend Joseph had ever known.

Joseph had previously been able to travel across the continent, meet with royalty, visit the theatre and spend holidays near luxurious country estates; however, now his health was failing rapidly.

The ward maid brought Joseph his lunch at the usual time of 1.30pm, and left quickly so that he could have his meal in peace. Joseph's daily routine continued with a 3 o'clock visit from one of the hospital's house surgeons. As soon as Dr Sidney Hodges stepped into the room, he knew something was wrong. Joseph was lying across his bed, and his lunch was untouched. Realising instantly that Joseph was dead and there was nothing he could do, Hodges didn't touch the body, but instead called at once for a more senior member of college staff, Dr. Evelyn Ashe.

Dr Ashe, upon arrival, examined Joseph alongside the other doctor present. Ashe noted there were no marks or injuries on his body, which would suggest violence.

 

 

The doctors came to the conclusion that Joseph died from asphyxiation, which was caused by the weight of his head pressing down on his windpipe. Joseph was found stretched out across the bed, which indicated he was likely awake and trying to get up when he suffered some catastrophic physical event and subsequently fell backwards. This news soon made its way into the media and around the country.

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 Joseph's death was reported in his hometown of Leicester the very next day by the Leicester Daily Mercury. The article read:                                   

 

                                                                            DEATH OF THE “ELEPHANT MAN.”

 

The “Elephant Man” who obtained considerable notoriety about four years ago, was on Friday found dead in his bed at the London Hospital. The unfortunate creature was terribly afflicted, apparently with some form of leprosy or elephantiasis, and was shown about the country till his sad case attracted the attention of the authorities of the London Hospital, and they offered him asylum within their walls. The man was provided with a small room of his own and was sent on holiday to an out of the way cottage on Dartmoor. The man was apparently quite well on Friday morning, and the exact cause of death is not yet known. His name was Joseph Merrick, and it is understood he was a native of Leicester. He was exhibited more than once at the fair.

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Given the Leicester Daily Mercury had a circulation of over 10,000 at the time, it is highly likely that Joseph's father, Joseph Rockley Merrick, or another member of his family read the story. However, it is impossible to know for certain.

However, upon notification from the Coroner's Office, it was his uncle, Charles Barnabus Merrick, who made the journey from Leicester to London to formally identify his nephew's body.

 

An inquest to determine the cause of Joseph's death was held at the London Hospital on Tuesday, 15 April 1890, four days after he had passed away. The coroner, Wynne Baxter, heard evidence, and the jury accepted that death was due to suffocation from the weight of the head pressing on the windpipe.

The House Committee of the London Hospital met on the same day as the inquest to discuss Joseph's death and the question of what to do with his body. It was agreed that after the funeral service was held in the chapel, the skeleton should be set up in the college museum, and the body handed over to Dr Treves, who was the licensed anatomist of the college.

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Therefore, after the funeral service had ended, Joseph's remains were taken to the Hospital Medical College. It was previously assumed  Joseph had expected to be preserved after his death, with his remains being made available for medical education and research. However, there is a penultimate passage in the inquest report, which is an extremely thought-provoking declaration.

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'We understand that the London Hospital committee refused not only to permit a necropsy on the body of the Elephant man, but also declined to allow his body to be preserved.'

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Joseph’s bones were bleached twice and re-articulated for private display in the medical college.

The description of Joseph Merrick’s death in the official inquest differs to that given by Frederick Treves in his memoirs, who gave a theatrical description of Joseph's death:

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"He was laying on his back as if asleep, and evidently died suddenly and without a struggle, since not even the coverlet of the bed was disturbed. The method of his death was peculiar. So large and so heavy was his head that he could not sleep lying down. When he assumed the recumbent position, the massive skull was inclined to drop backwards, with the result he experienced no little distress".

Treves goes on to describe how Joseph sat up in bed to sleep, just as Tom Norman had seen and recorded back in 1884. Treves noted that Joseph had expressed a desire to be able to lie down and sleep in a ‘normal’ position. Given his romanticised account of the death, it seems likely that this is exactly what Joseph intended to do. Treves wrote that the pillow was soft, and when Joseph’s head was placed on it, it must have fallen backwards. This would have caused dislocation of the neck. Thus, it came about that his death was due to the desire that had dominated his life – the hopeless desire to be ‘like other people’.

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Treves' description in his memoirs, which differ from the inquest, could be from his memory of Joseph's position after the doctors had examined the body. Hodges and Ashe likely laid Joseph on his bed with his head on the pillow, to make the body more presentable for Treves' examination.

 

Treves had the challenging task of dissecting and anatomising Joseph’s body. He oversaw the taking of plaster casts of the head and extremities, and the preservation of skin samples. The skin samples were lost during the war when the hospital was evacuated, and the jars containing them dried out. The bomb damage caused dry rot to spread through the fixtures and fittings in the building, affecting the specimens. Consequently, all the samples were burnt during renovations.

Furthermore, during the War, the pre-1907 London Hospital documents - including Joseph Merrick's post-mortem report - had been removed to a safe place underground due to the risk of potential bombing. However, this secret location took a direct hit during the Blitz and was destroyed.

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A number of people who knew Joseph took a personal interest in the news of his death​

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Lady Louisa Knightley of Fawsley Park, who wrote in her journal:

I see in today’s paper that poor Merrick, the ‘Elephant Man’, is dead, passed quickly away in his sleep. It is a merciful way of going out of what to him has been a very sad world, though he has received a great deal of kindness in it. Thank God – he was not unprepared. Now! He is safe and at rest.

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Dame Madge Kendal, another of Joseph’s great benefactors, wrote in her autobiography that:

My husband and I always considered it a great privilege to be allowed to soothe his suffering.

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 The man who first bought Joseph to the London Hospital, Dr Frederick Treves, wrote of his patient and friend:

As a specimen of humanity, Merrick was ignoble and repulsive; but the spirit of Merrick, if it could be seen in the form of the living, would assume the figure of an upstanding and heroic man, smooth browed and clean of limb, and with eyes that flashed undaunted courage.

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Tom Norman, Joseph’s former manager, who was probably the person he was closest to in adulthood, wrote:

Despite all Dr Treves’ statements about Joseph Merrick being happy and contented in his ‘haven of refuge’ it is my belief that Joseph, whose only wish was to be free and independent, felt as if he were a prisoner and living on charity, and was keenly conscious of the indignity of having to appear undressed before a never-ending stream of doctors, surgeons and Dr Treves’ friends - on the night, probably in a ‘what the Hell’ frame of mind, quite conscious of the risk, lay full length on the bed and never woke up. Perhaps that’s what he wanted. The question is – who really ‘exploited’ poor Joseph? I, the showman, got the abuse. Dr Treves, the eminent surgeon (who you must admit was also a showman, but on a rather higher social scale) received the publicity and praise.

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Joseph's final remains, his flesh/muscles/organs, were buried on 24th April 1890, at the City of London Cemetery and Crematorium.

Joseph is in a common grave, so there was probably never a headstone. But he does lie in consecrated ground.

In June 2019, The City of London Cemetery and Crematorium put in a little brass plaque to mark the place where Joseph Carey Merrick rests.

 

Apart from posts on the social media pages, I don't think anyone has officially said that Joseph’s remains will be dug up and examined. Chances are there is nothing left now, and Joseph has returned to the ground. There is somewhere to go for those who wish to remember Joseph, place some flowers, and say a little prayer.

 

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                                                                                Joseph Carey Merrick

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                                                                       5 August 1862, Lee Street, Leicester

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                                                                                                 ~

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                                                      11 April 1890, Bedstead Square, London Hospital, Whitechapel

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