Phrenological Character Assessments

Two phrenological character assessments, stated to have been made by made by "Mrs Clitherow, Practical Phrenologist". The subjects of the assessments are identified as "Mrs. Pullen" and "Master Horace J. Pullen"; the address on the letterhead is "Phrenological Consulting Rooms, 65 Grey's Inn Road, London, WC" but a handwritten note states "examined at Worthing." The Grey's Inn Road address was, at one point in the late nineteenth century, occupied by a tobacconist (according to Kelly's Directory of Post Office London) and is unlikely ever to have been a particularly stylish address; these assessments may well relate, then, to the period in its history when phrenology had slipped out of scientific discussion and become an end-of-the-pier amusement. The documents are not dated but have the look of the mid-19th century.