Lorenzo Fowler ran a successful phrenological publishing business in London in the second half of the nineteenth century (L. N. Fowler & Co.). He became famous for selling these model ceramic heads to accompany his books and these are still widely copied and sold today. The heads were clearly labelled in simple language so that people could become self-taught phrenologists whether for scientific experiment, education or pure entertainment. The theory was that each skull grew into a shape that reflected the shape of the brain beneath, so that a person with an enlarged area of skull above the right ear, for example, could be identified as having especially destructive tendencies.

Object on loan from the Whipple Museum of the History of Science, University of Cambridge, Wh.2744