Ahead of BTG’s production of The Elephant Man, read about the life of the real “Elephant Man” Bernard Pomerance’s play is based off of. Joseph Merrick was an extraordinary a young man who, despite the cruelty he faced based solely on his deformities, met the world with sincere kindness and generosity.
A portrait of Joseph Merrick taken in 1889
Early Life
Many would be surprised that Joseph Carey Merrick was born perfectly healthy with no physical abnormalities on August 5, 1862 in Leicester, England. Around the age of five, however, this changed as his appearance began to shift in unexpected ways. Medically, nobody understood what caused his condition, and even today his precise condition remains a mystery, as DNA tests performed on his hair and bones have been inconclusive. The best guess medical professionals can make today is that he may have had a very rare disorder called Proteus syndrome, which causes asymmetrical growth and extreme development of skin, bones and other body parts. Lacking medical knowledge or support, however, Joseph’s mother, Mary, came to believe that an incident during her pregnancy–being knocked down by an elephant at a fair–had somehow caused his deformities.
In contrast to the depiction in Bernard Pomerance’s play, Joseph’s relationship with his mother was loving and close. He was only 11 years old when Mary passed away from pneumonia, which he described as “the greatest misfortune of my life,” a loss that overshadowed even the cruelty he often endured from strangers.
Only 18 months after his mother’s death, Joseph met his father’s new wife, who made his life considerably worse. Around this time, he quit school as his mother’s death, the ill treatment from his stepmother and father, and the disgusted gaze from his peers took a toll on his mental health.
After failed attempts at securing a job to create income for the household from ages thirteen through sixteen, he fled his home and his uncle took him in instead. This was short-lived, however, due to financial hardship. Facing life on the streets and the unkind stares of strangers, Joseph made a difficult decision: he would try to survive by exhibiting himself in public.
The Elephant Man
During the Victorian era, freak shows often gave people with disabilities a way of earning income, and so Joseph decided to try to monetize off of his deformities. In 1884, when Joseph was 22 years old, local proprietor Sam Torr decided to take Merrick on tour as a traveling act. Being billed as “half a man, half an elephant,” he began his career as a “freak show” act touring Leicester, Nottingham and London. Later on that same year, Joseph switched management to Tom Norman, an East London shop owner who displayed human oddities and curiosities. Despite the spectacle, Norman tried to shift the narrative, assuring audiences that Joseph was “not here to frighten you but to enlighten you.”
Tom Norman’s shop happened to be across the road from London Hospital, where Dr. Frederick Treves worked. Curious, Dr. Treves went to see Joseph before the shop opened one day. Intrigued by what he saw, Treves asked if he could take Joseph to the hospital for an examination. This chance encounter led to a relationship that would alter the course of Joseph’s life, and eventually become the heart of The Elephant Man, the play that brought his story to broader awareness.
Home: Joseph’s Time at London Hospital
After Dr. Treves’s initial examination, Joseph Merrick continued his performances, eventually being shipped to Belgium after English police began to crack down on freak shows. There, he was robbed and abandoned by his new area manager and then once again roamed the streets of Essex, homeless and afraid. Eventually, he was taken into Dr. Treves’s care at London Hospital, where Dr. Treves discovered that Joseph had a heart condition and estimated that Joseph would live a few more years at most.
In a rare and touching moment of public generosity, the hospital’s chairman published an appeal in The Times asking if anyone had places for the young man to stay. The response was overwhelming. Donations flooded in, allowing the hospital to create a permanent, comfortable space for Joseph. In the hospital basement, two rooms were specially adapted for him, free of mirrors and with access to a private courtyard. For the first time in his life, Joseph found a sense of peace and belonging.
Despite how the public viewed him, Joseph was quite intelligent. He particularly loved writing letters, which he often ended with four poetic lines he wrote himself followed by a four-line excerpt from a poem called “False Greatness” by Isaac Watts:
‘Tis true my form is something odd,
But blaming me is blaming God;
Could I create myself anew,
I would not fail in pleasing you.
Were I so tall to reach the pole,
Or grasp the ocean with my span,
I would be measured by the soul;
The mind’s the standard of the man.
Throughout his life, Joseph Merrick only had one wish: to be seen and treated just like everybody else.
The Death of Joseph Merrick
Dr. Treves was correct about the short time Joseph had left, but his cause of death was much more surprising. Over the years, Joseph’s continuous skin and bone growth had made his head extremely heavy. His head was so heavy that every night he needed to sleep in a chair, as lying down could potentially cause complications. But on April 11, 1890, a hospital employee found him lying in bed–having apparently tried to sleep like everyone else. He died at just 27 years old.
After completing Joseph’s autopsy, Dr. Treves believed that he died of asphyxiation, but, over 100 years later, another theory suggested that Joseph’s neck had dislocated under the weight of his head, crushing his spinal column. After Joseph’s death, Dr. Treves wrote a memoir, The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences, though he mistakenly referred to Joseph as “John Merrick”—a curious error that has endured to this day.
Joseph’s skeleton was preserved at London Hospital, now called the Royal London Hospital, as a scientific specimen and, after the autopsy, Joseph’s skeleton was given to the Queen Mary University of London. For a long period of time, his skeleton was on display for the general public to view.
Legacy
Joseph Merrick’s life was filled with unimaginable hardship, but he met it with gentleness, grace and an unwavering desire to be accepted for who he was. His story remains a powerful meditation on compassion, reminding us how dignity and humanity can endure even in the face of cruelty. In today’s world, where empathy and understanding are more vital than ever, Joseph’s life offers a timeless lesson: that every person, no matter how they appear, deserves to be seen, heard and loved.
