Case Studies in Human Remains and Contemporary Museum Ethics: UCL Pathology Museum and the Hunterian Museum, London
Two very different London museums tell us a lot about how the dialogue around human remains in museums is evolving, at least in the UK.
Content warning: this post inevitably deals with death and human remains. I have, however, made an effort not to show images/close-up images of human remains. I use the terms ‘human remains’ and ‘human tissue’ somewhat interchangeably. That I also use the word ‘specimens’ in reference to human remains is not intended to show any disrespect.
Human Remains in Museum Collections: An Introduction
Today’s post is another where we dig below the surface to really consider a topic in depth. A museum, heritage site or exhibition is often the catalyst, as this post or this one demonstrate. Today is no exception.
It was on my busy week of visiting sites all around London last September as part of Open House 2024 that I started thinking about this topic. During any Open House I am particularly drawn to places that are not normally open to the public, and those where I can join a guided tour and learn from the experts. On my agenda was the UCL Pathology Museum. I hadn’t given it too much thought, other than that it met those criteria. And I find pathology and anatomy museums interesting places, having visited the one at my alma mater, for instance.
But it was the talk by the UCL Pathology Museum’s curator that got me thinking. Before we set off exploring, she gave us a grounding in the ethics, considerations, rules and limitations of pathology museums. The types of people who can normally view the collection under the UK’s Human Tissue Act, for instance. How decisions on collections management shape their ongoing utilization. The fact that a social media policy is now necessary.
I thought about all of these factors as I headed to my next stop, coincidentally another scientific collection at King’s College but not a pathology museum this time (theirs, the Gordon Museum of Pathology, does not allow visitors other than medical professionals). It was clear from my experience at UCL Pathology Museum, and casual reading I’ve done, that there is a shift in the treatment of human remains in museum collections. Much like the shift in how we think about the display of indigenous remains and cultural property, a subject I was once well versed in.
While it was on my mind, I decided to conduct some further research. Knowing the Hunterian Museum was not too far, I headed there. Having recently been renovated and presented according to the latest museological standards, what would this second reference point add to my knowledge of how the dialogue around human remains is evolving? Keep reading to find out.
Case Study 1: UCL Pathology Museum
Let’s start where this story started for me, at UCL’s Pathology Museum. UCL, or University College London dates back to 1826, when it was London University and, inspired by the radical Jeremy Bentham (who we will hear more about), was the first secular university in England to admit students regardless of religion. It’s now part of the federal University of London. It has merged with several other institutions over the years, which has a bearing on our pathology museum. We could say the same for many an anatomy/pathology museum – there are far fewer than there were at their heyday (Svanberg, 2012).
UCL Pathology Museum is located at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead. That was one of those mergers, or at least the medical school was, back in 1998. It’s not the sexiest of buildings, or the most leak-proof, but does give medical students and other professionals easy access to the collection. And the mergers have resulted in a varied and historic collection. It’s hard to find a definitive history of the museum online. But it’s certainly true that it has specimens dating back to the 1800s. Whether it’s 2,000, 6,000 or 8,000 specimens depends on which website you’re looking at.
This organic (excuse the pun?) acquisition has created certain challenges. The collecting policies of museums generally were not the same in the past as they are now, and the same goes for human remains (which mostly began as teaching or reference specimens rather than museum artefacts, but you catch my drift). Poor preservation and documentation are amongst the dangers: this is a particularly pertinent example from UCL. Consent was not something Victorian (or later) doctors thought much about. Conversely, the fact that UCL Pathology Museum no longer collects specimens means there are more examples of common diseases of the past (rickets, tuberculosis) than newer diseases (COVID-19, HIV/AIDS).
The Human Tissue Act (which we will read more about soon) places restrictions on the retention, display and use of human remains, including in museums. At UCL Pathology Museum, this means it is not generally open to the public. It is, however, open to non-medical professionals with a genuine interest, for instance authors, artists, and architects (who apparently like the shapes). Visitors are asked to be respectful, and not to put photos of human remains on social media. Photos for personal use are permissable, except of sensitive specimens such as foetuses.
Case Study 2: The Hunterian Museum
The Hunterian Museum is a very different kind of institution than UCL Pathology Museum. But there are similarities. Its founding collection, that of Scottish surgeon John Hunter, is a little earlier. Hunter was born in 1728 and died in 1793. He was a distinguished surgeon and scientist, advocate for careful scientific observation, and collaborated with Edward Jenner of smallpox vaccine fame. But it’s his collection rather than career we’re interested in.
Being an 18th century man, Hunter’s was an Enlightenment collection (Svanberg, 2012). His anatomical specimens were certainly useful to him in his work. But he went much further than that, amassing upwards of 10,000 anatomical, zoological and botanical specimens to allow the sorts of comparisons and categorisations that Enlightenment scholars loved, and which were required of Hunter as a lecturer in comparative anatomy. In 1783 he moved to a large house in Leicester Square, setting aside space to turn his collection into a teaching museum. In 1799, some years after Hunter’s death, the government purchased his collection and papers and presented them to the Company of Surgeons. A lot of his pathological specimens came from dissections and, given the contemporaneous methods of obtaining bodies, we can assume at least some dubious ethics.
Just like UCL Pathology Museum, the Hunterian has incorporated other collections over the years. At the Hunterian Museum this includes an odontological (dentistry) collection and natural history collection. The museum has expanded its premises at the Royal College of Surgeons, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, several times over ensuing centuries. It most recently underwent a major renovation between 2017 and 2023.
Human remains at the Hunterian Museum are thus a) one part of a greater story, and b) part of a collection that has been of mixed public and professional interest for more than two centuries. The collections’ respective age, history and usage impact their display today, and I think it’s time we take a look at what exactly that means.
Perspectives: Legal
We’re going to start by understanding the legal landscape, before moving into the trickier topic of ethics. The Human Tissue Act 2004 (replacing an earlier act from 1961) covers the removal, storage, use and disposal of human remains in England. The impetus for this act is an important piece of background as it has shaped the display of human remains in museum collections, among other things. The current Human Tissue Act is a direct result of scandals involving the unauthorised retention of human tissue, including from children, for example at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool and Bristol Royal Infirmary. In the wake of the scandals and subsequent inquiries the Human Tissue Act was implemented, and established a Human Tissue Authority to govern its regulations and administration.
Importantly for us as we think about human remains and museums specifically, there are inclusions and exclusions under the Act. Anything over 100 years of age is out of scope, for instance. As is anything imported (Bonney et al, 2019). And as for what constitutes human tissue, the Act has a long but not exhaustive list. Museums (or other institutions) must have a Public Display Licence to display human remains under 100 years old, unless there is specific consent from the donor for this usage. But showing images is fine (Valentine, 2016). So a museum could theoretically block access to the areas where human remains under 100 years are on display, replace them with photographs of the same specimens, and be compliant.
What does that mean for our two case studies? Well, at UCL Pathology Museum, there are a mix of specimens over and under 100 years old. I’m not sure if they would normally need a licence for public display given they limit access and it’s not exactly open to the public. But they do have one, enabling rare events such as the Open House one I attended. It’s a slightly different story at the Hunterian Museum. The age of the core collections means they are exempt from the act. The Royal College of Surgeons, however, follow HTA and other relevant guidelines and have licences including for the display of human remains. Were the specimens in either museum collected after the Act came into force, however, they do not meet the consent requirements to be put on display.
Perspectives: Ethical
In the case of human remains, there is always some overlap of the legal and the ethical. The 1961 Human Tissue Act came from a place of paternalism – more important not to overwhelm patients and families with details than get explicit consent. The 2004 Act, coming in the wake of scandals, has consent at its heart. I’ve already alluded to the fact that there are three categories of retained human tissue under the Act: specimens over 100 years old (excluded), specimens under 100 years old but part of existing holdings (‘grandfathered in’ but needing a licence for display) and specimens collected since the Act came into force. For these consent is required, for retention and for the future use(s) to which the specimen will be put.
But there’s more to ethics than just consent. My Masters thesis was about the way that different strands of the repatriation movement influence each other. I wonder the extent to which conversations about indigenous human remains in museums has in turn influenced a wider discussion? If it’s not OK for remains from indigenous communities to be museum artefacts, is it OK for anyone’s remains? Particularly when neither the indigenous examples or most anatomical/pathology specimens were collected with the subject’s knowledge (we’re back to consent again – see Bonney et al, 2019). Even mummified Egyptian remains, which we tend to objectify more than any other human examples, are now sometimes behind additional screens or warnings in a museum context (Warren, 2024).
There are a lot of different guidelines governing the ethics of human remains for museums. In addition to the HTA guidelines in the UK, there are 2005 guidelines from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and the Museums Association’s 2015 Code of Ethics (see more listed in Bonney et al, 2019). Broadly speaking, though, there are a few key considerations when it comes to human remains in museums:
- Treating human remains with dignity, eg. in their preservation, storage, handling, and display
- Understanding their cultural, spiritual, religious, scientific, education and historic value. Sometimes this can mean undertaking additional research to plug gaps in incomplete records
- Managing claims for the return of human remains in a timely and respectful manner. This tends to apply more to claims by indigenous groups than the anatomical and pathological collections we are considering here
For some institutions, the answer has been to deaccession their holdings of human remains. For instance the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, which I also visited during Open House, has done just that. They originally had some specimens of human remains in their collection but have passed these to an institution better able to care for them, focusing instead on their historic collections. Those that retain or take on collections including human remains generally ensure ethical guidelines are followed through designating responsible people, and implementing appropriate policies and procedures according to best practices.
And our case studies? The Hunterian Museum follows all the guidelines I’ve mentioned so far. And given the grounding in ethics that I got from UCL Pathology Museum’s curator, I have no qualms about how seriously they take it, either.
Perspectives: Professional vs. Public Interest in Human Remains
One of the ethical considerations when it comes to human remains and museums is whether there is a genuine value in displaying them. Take Body Worlds, for instance. That was a large-scale exhibition model which was a fad 15-20 years ago, and is still going today. Ostensibly educational, but are most visitors going to learn, or for the thrill of the taboo? Or something in between? It seems to have been a concern for UK regulators (Valentine, 2016).
Body Worlds is an extreme example due to some ethical scandals and the fact that it’s a big commercial venture. We’re also talking more specifically about the UK today. And under the Human Tissue Act, the balance is currently in favour of factors other than public interest.
Professional interest in preserved human remains is very easy to comprehend and justify. UCL Pathology Museum is a great example. It’s a museum, yes, but it’s also a working collection. Medical students come here to get familiar with different pathologies. Medical professionals learn from the specimens, even those decades or even centuries old. They make up the bulk of the audience, and their patients and the medical profession more broadly benefit from the knowledge they gain.
There is a public interest in anatomy and pathology museums as well, however. It’s a different country with different legal and cultural factors, but Ruth Warren outlines the argument for allowing public access to such museums in her 2024 PhD thesis (Warren, 2024). The benefits she names include inspiring curiosity and careers, shaping attitudes including to visitors’ own bodies, health empowerment, fostering empathy, safe contemplation of death, and human connection. In her interviews with visitors to the W. D. Trotter Anatomy Museum at the University of Otago, seeing genuine specimens was important to realising these benefits.
So our two case studies diverge here. UCL Pathology Museum is first and foremost serving a professional interest. This is partly due to some of its collections falling under the Human Tissue Act. But it’s also practicality – the museum is inside a working hospital, and doesn’t have the resourcing to function as a publicly accessible space. The Hunterian Museum serves the general public, some of whom will also have a professional interest. It’s also within a professional institution, the Royal College of Surgeons, but it’s not a place of medical treatment. The Hunterian Museum guides visitors on what to expect, while encouraging them to realise some of the potential benefits named above.
Perspectives: Donors
A final perspective to consider is that of the people whose remains we are discussing. We’ll look at donors first, and then their families and communities. I read an interesting thesis on the question of the rights and interests that the dead themselves have, and the duties that the living have towards them (Masterson, 2010). The conclusion, in a nutshell, is that the dead do have a continuing interest in what happens with their remains. This is particularly true where it has an impact on their reputation or right to privacy (so famous people). Or where the posthumous use to which human remains are put upholds or contravenes the known wishes of an individual.
There are a couple of examples from our case studies that are relevant here. One from UCL first of all, but not the Pathology Museum this time. I mentioned Jeremy Bentham before as a radical who inspired the foundation of what was to become University College. Another radical thing about him were the instructions he gave for his body in his will. When he died in 1832 his skeleton was stripped, and dressed in his clothes, after being dissected in a public lecture. It’s still on display, with a wax head, at the UCL Students’ Centre. This ‘auto icon‘, as it’s known, upholds Bentham’s wishes for his remains to be publicly displayed.
A second example comes from the Hunterian Museum, and involves some terrible ethics on the part of John Hunter. It also involves Charles Byrne, known as the ‘Irish Giant’. Standing 7 ft 7 in (2.31 m), he was accustomed to being a curiosity for paying audiences in London. He wished to have a more peaceful death, however. Before he died in 1783 at 22 years old, he expressed his wish to be buried at sea to prevent his corpse being dissected. Hunter intercepted the coffin en route to this burial, however, and put his skeleton on display in his museum. There it stayed until the recent renovations, directly contravening Byrne’s wishes and interests.
For most individuals whose remains are held in anatomical or pathological collections, knowing their wishes is not so simple. Masterson argues that our duties to the donors are threefold. Duties of truthfulness, recognition (that they were once living like us), and respecting privacy. Most institutions, I would argue, do their best to uphold these.
Perspectives: Families and Communities
And now to consider human remains in museums from the perspective of families and communities. Donors and families are at the heart of the Human Tissue Act. After all, it was the harm that the actions of doctors and hospitals caused to families which caused the act to come into being. The provisions around explicit consent, and the restrictions on public display of human remains, ensure that existing and future museum collections are formed, maintained and displayed to the highest ethical standards and upholding the wishes of donors or families acting on donors’ behalf (Bonney et al, 2019).
In limited cases descendants of historic individuals whose remains are preserved may make themselves known to museums: their attitude to ongoing preservation and display may depend on spiritual and cultural beliefs (Bonney et al, 2019).
Which brings us on to communities. Communities are a slightly different matter. And we should clarify what we’re talking about when we talk about communities. If we think about some of this largely historic pathology specimens in UCL Pathology Museum, for instance, those people were part of a community. Generally they are now separated from their identities as individuals, making it harder to know what this community was specifically. If we assume they were part of the majority (White British and Christian), there is unlikely to be an outcry at their ongoing display. Museums such as these are, after all, part of a Western tradition of science, medicine, and museology.
So when we talk about communities and human remains, we are normally talking about culturally-affiliated, non-Western communities. Most claims for repatriation of human remains come from indigenous groups from around the globe. But the nature of our case studies today means that we have not delved enough into this equally rich and complex topic to do it justice in a paragraph or two here. I’ll just say I found very little about restitution online from UCL Pathology Museum (more from their archaeology staff). The case most discussed in repatriation/restitution discussions involving the Hunterian Museum is that for or against retaining Charles Byrne’s skeleton.
I will leave you with another thought I gleaned from that thesis (Masterson, 2010). Should the existence of (non-Western) culturally-affiliated descendants be the determinant of how we treat human remains in museum collections? Whether we continue to conduct research on them, for instance? Or, knowing that few (if any) of the specimens in historic collections were collected according to today’s ethical standards, should we find a consistent position instead? I feel I’m opening up a whole new line of enquiry now just as we’re coming to a close.
Conclusion: Further Directions in Human Remains
Thanks for sticking with me this long! I hope you’ve found this survey, brief as it is, as interesting as I have. And now I have just a few final thoughts before wrapping up.
I selected today’s two case studies a little at random. UCL Pathology Museum was part of my exploration of different sites all over London as part of Open House. And it was a mention by their curator that got me thinking about the Hunterian Museum. The different challenges and considerations we’ve discussed exist at many more museums in London, across the UK, and globally. The nature of those challenges varies according to the history of the collection, whether the human remains are ancient or modern, skeletal or preserved tissue, archaeological or anatomical or pathological, from indigenous groups or local communities, and many more things besides. But I’ve already written one Masters thesis and that was enough for me. This post was always about providing some food for thought rather than a comprehensive overview.
I agree with Ruth Warren that having access to such collections, where appropriate, can provide a range of benefits to public and professionals alike (Warren, 2024). But this needs to be balanced with good legal and ethical boundaries and guidelines. It’s important, too, for visitors to have guidance on interacting with collections including human remains in respectful, appropriate ways. The two case studies we’ve seen today, as well as most other museums I’m aware of, do good work here.
There is still one area of museology where the different moral worlds of yesterday and today overlap. It can be possible for contemporary museums to tell meaningful stories with specimens that were not gathered for the right reasons or in the right ways. But not without acknowledging that past and engaging with it transparently. I look forward to seeing where the conversations thus initiated take us in future!
List of References
- Bonney, H., Bekvalac, J., & Phillips, C. (2019). “Human Remains in Museum Collections in the United Kingdom.” In Squires, K., Errickson, D., Márquez-Grant, N. Ethical Approaches to Human Remains, Springer, pp. 211–237.
- Masterson, M. (2010). “Duties to Past Persons: Moral Standing and Posthumous Interests of Old Human Remains.” PhD Thesis, Uppsala universitet.
- Svanberg, F. (2012). “Anatomy at the Museum: Bodies Represented; Collected and Contested.” In Poulot, D., Lanzarote Guiral, J. and Bodenstein, F. National Museums and the Negotiation of Difficult Pasts, Conference Proceedings from EuNaMus, Identity Politics, the Uses of the Past and the European Citizen, Brussels 26-27 January 2012. Linköping University Electronic Press.
- Valentine, C. (2016). “Our Bodies, Our World: The Effect of the Human Tissue Act on Public Display of Human Remains in British Museums.” (DOC) Our Bodies, Our World: The Effect of the Human Tissue Act on Public Display of Human Remains in British Museums | Carla Valentine – Academia.edu (accessed 30 October 2024).
- Warren, R. (2024). “Anatomy of a Visit: Exploring Visitor Responses to the Display of Human Remains.” PhD Thesis, University of Otago.
Trending
If you see this after your page is loaded completely, leafletJS files are missing.