Showing 2 results for the tag: Charles Byrne.

March 28, 2012

Hunterian Museum rejects requests for Charles Byrne’s skeleton to be buried at sea

Posted at 12:57 pm in Similar cases

More coverage of the (rejected) requests for the Hunterian Museum’s skeleton of Charles Byrne to be buried at sea.

From:
Sydney Morning Herald

UK museum to keep ‘giant’ skeleton
Tim Moynihan
December 23, 2011
PAA

British museum chiefs have rejected a suggestion by experts in law and medical ethics that the skeleton of an 18th-century man known as the “Irish Giant” should be removed from display and buried at sea.

Charles Byrne, originally from County Londonderry, stood just over 7ft 7in tall.
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Burying the Hunterian’s “Irish Giant” skeleton at sea?

Posted at 12:51 pm in Similar cases

One of the most noticeable exhibits in London’s Hunterian Museum is that of Charles Byrne, also know as “The Irish Giant”. 230 years after his death though, there are renewed calls for the skeleton to be buried at sea, in accordance of the stated wishes of Charles Byrne whilst he was alive.

From:
Londonist

Should The Hunterian Museum’s Giant Skeleton Be Buried At Sea?
By M@ · December 21, 2011 at 15:01

Anyone who has ever visited the Hunterian Museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields will remember this one exhibit. The skeletal remains of Charles Byrne, the ‘Irish Giant’ who stood 7′ 7” tall, are something of an unofficial mascot for the anatomy museum, as the mal-stuffed walrus is for the Horniman Museum and that weird jar of moles is for the Grant.

But now there are renewed calls for the skeleton to be buried at sea. It’s a tale of 230-year-old last wishes, corpse robbing and the grey area between science, education and morality.
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