Why the racist study of skulls gripped Victorian Britain

The University of Edinburgh’s ‘skull room’ holds one of the largest and most historically significant collections of ancestral remains - (PA)

The recent publication of the University of Edinburgh’s Review of Race and History has drawn attention to its “skull room”: a collection of 1,500 human craniums procured for study in the 19th century.

Craniometry, the study of skull measurements, was widely taught in medical schools across Britain, Europe, and the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries.