“THE GORDON MUSEUM – Mummies: Past and Present”

Following our very successful visits over the last few years, The Sherlock Holmes Society of London has again been offered the opportunity to visit The Gordon Museum of Pathology at King’s College (Guy’s Campus) and to hear a lecture given by the Museum’s Director William (Bill) Edwards.  There will be time to have a look around the Museum as well.  This is an unprecedented opportunity – The Gordon Museum is not open to the public and is normally accessible only to students and members of the medical profession.  It is a teaching collection, so some of the exhibits will be somewhat graphic.

Please note: that all forms of Photography, Filming and Social Media are prohibited whilst in the Gordon Museum

The event will be on Tuesday 6^th October 2026 from 4pm to 6pm.  While we understand that this time will not be suitable for many members, this was the only possible time the visit could be arranged.  Enter through the Hodgkin Building, G on the campus map below, using the entrance in Newcomen Street opposite Bowling Green Place, by the Shuttle Bus Stop.  The nearest tube stations are Borough and London Bridge. 

 The lecture this year gives an overview of early mummies produced by a number of cultures, including examples from ancient Egypt, South America, Europe, Siberia, Japan, New Guinea and China. Such mummies were made accidentally or deliberately, and the techniques used to produce these mummies included drying, freezing and smoking.  We will also look at the return and rise of mummification in the Modern age, with special attention to the recent award winning project involving Mr. Alan Billis, which was inspired in part by unusual features observed in x-ray and scanned images.

While mummies do not generally feature in the Sherlock Holmes canon, unless we include Lady Beatrice Falder, “a body swathed in a sheet from head to foot, with dreadful, witch-like features, all nose and chin, projecting at one end, the dim, glazed eyes staring from a discoloured and crumbling face”, two of Conan Doyle’s short stories concern Ancient Egypt and mummies.  Who can forget the terrifying animated mummy, probably the first of its kind, in Lot 249,

The features, though horribly discoloured, were perfect, and two little nut-like eyes still lurked in the depths of the black, hollow sockets.  The blotched skin was drawn tightly from bone to bone, and a tangled wrap of black coarse hair fell over the ears.  Two thin teeth, like those of a rat, overlay the shrivelled lower lip.  In its crouching position, with bent joints and craned head, there was a suggestion of energy about the horrid thing which made Smith’s gorge rise.  The gaunt ribs, with their parchment-like covering, were exposed, and the sunken, leaden-hued abdomen, with the long slit where the embalmer had left his mark; but the lower limbs were wrapt round with coarse yellow bandages.  A number of little clove-like pieces of myrrh and of cassia were sprinkled over the body, and lay scattered on the inside of the case…

…he glanced back at the road along which he had come.  Something was coming swiftly down it.

It moved in the shadow of the hedge, silently and furtively, a dark, crouching figure, dimly visible against the black background.  Even as he gazed back at it, it had lessened its distance by twenty paces, and was fast closing upon him.  Out of the darkness he had a glimpse of a scraggy neck, and of two eyes that will ever haunt him in his dreams.  He turned, and with a cry of terror he ran for his life up the avenue.  There were the red lights, the signals of safety, almost within a stone’s throw of him.  He was a famous runner, but never had he run as he ran that night.

The heavy gate had swung into place behind him, but he heard it dash open again before his pursuer.  As he rushed madly and wildly through the night, he could hear a swift, dry patter behind him, and could see, as he threw back a glance, that this horror was bounding like a tiger at his heels, with blazing eyes and one stringy arm outthrown.

This year, no meal has been arranged afterwards, but members will find many inns and bars in the area, should they feel in need of refreshment afterwards.

 King’s Gordon Museum of Pathology is the largest medical museum in the UK and one of the largest pathology Museums in the world.  The rare and unique artefacts on display include Lister’s antiseptic spray and the original specimens which led Richard Bright, Thomas Addison and Thomas Hodgkin to describe the medical conditions that bear their names as well as the Joseph Towne anatomical and dermatological wax models collection. The earliest specimen actually dates from around 1608.

The Museum’s primary function has always been to help train medical, dental and biomedical students and professionals to diagnose disease, encouraging learning from the past in order to impact positively on contemporary and future healthcare developments.  The specimens were first collected by Thomas Hodgkin, who became the first Medical Curator in the first Medical School which was opened in 1826.  Under Hodgkin’s Curatorship the Museum became well established – his catalogue of 1829 listed some 3,000 exhibits.  The collection grew in size, expanding into further museum space.  In 1861 the London Journal of Medicine reported that the “Museums are on a scale which entitles them to rank among the first of our national collections”.  These Museums contained collections relating to Natural History and Comparative Anatomy as well as the very good systematic collection of Human Pathology.  In 1890 an extra year was added to the Medical School curriculum, so a new school was built, the present school (now known as the Hodgkin Building).   The Museum was built solely with a donation from the lawyer Robert Gordon, 1829-1918, and opened in 1905.   The building is a Victorian-style cast iron and glass construction, similar to Crystal Palace, divided into four sections with two storeys of galleries overlooking each quarter of the ground floor. Intended to be a teaching resource devoted purely to human material, the Comparative Anatomy collections were removed.  The Gordon Museum continued to develop new specimen collections, collect Medical and Dental instruments, equipment and ephemera becoming the country’s largest teaching medical museum with close to 8,000 pathological specimens on display.

 Members and their guests may attend the Gordon Museum and lecture at £15 per head, £10 of which will be passed by The Society to the Museum as a donation.

 Dress is smart casual and gentlemen are asked to wear a jacket and tie.

Applications should be sent to arrive not later than Friday 2^nd October.

Anyone attending a Society function for the first time should indicate this on the booking form, so that we can identify them and introduce them to our members.  We look forward to seeing everyone on the night.

 The Society likes to keep a record of its activities, including photographs of our meetings which are published in the Journal and on the Society’s website/Facebook page.  If you do not want to appear in a Society photograph please avoid being in any posed photographs and advise one of the meeting organisers.

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The Meetings Secretary’s e mail address is: c.cooke@dsl.pipex.com