How Often Has Burns’ Skull Been Examined?

An article in an obscure American magazine came to my notice.   The ATLANTIC MONTHLY, October 1860, carried an article “Some of the Haunts of Burns” by a tourist without imagination (Nathaniel Hawthorn).     This was an account of a visit to Scotland, deduced to be 1857, dealing with a pilgrimage to Burns sites from Dumfries to Ayr, with impressions and descriptions of these.

A particular passage caught my attention when in his description of his visit to St. Michael’s Churchyard and the Poet’s mausoleum, he recounts that a local woman who was guiding him around the scene informed him that the vault had been opened some three weeks earlier for the interment of Robert Jnr. (hence my deduction that this was 1857).  She informed that on that occasion a local Doctor taken away the skull of Burns and kept it for several days before it was replaced within a new lead coffin.

We all know of the famous incident where the phrenologists took the skull and made a plaster cast of it, that was in 1834 at the time of Jeans burial, but this scenario was not within my scope of knowledge.   My first reaction was to fathom a reason for this to be a mis-reporting or error of the facts, as surely such a significant happening would have been well described prior to this and widely known by the present day Burnsians.  I posted an enquiry on our website discussion forum and was met with the obvious responses that related this story to the plaster casting.  I raised the question at Federation Executive, but nothing was known, indeed most were quite dismissive and certain that it could not have happened. One acknowledged expert mentioned that as the skull was embedded in pitch within a lead box then a subsequent examination would have been difficult in the extreme.

The very next day, James, a frequent web contributor, turned up The History of the Burgh of Dumfries, (written in 1867) which records that “When the vault was once more opened, for the interment of Burns's eldest son, in May, 1857, the skull of the bard was found to have altered very little since the cast had been taken from it. To secure its better preservation, the vacant space of the enclosing casket was filled with pitch, after which the precious ‘dome of thought’ was restored to its position, to be no more disturbed, we trust, till the day of doom”.

It appears this little piece of history had fallen from our current general knowledge, and would have remained lost but for some writings from the mid 19th century, and a couple of enthusiasts who read such obscure materials.