James Cowles Prichard of the Red Lodge - (Critical Studies in the History of Anthropology) by Margaret M Crump

About the Book

Margaret M. Crump offers the first thorough biography of British scientist and physician James Cowles Prichard (1786-1848), an intellectual giant in the developing human sciences, a pioneering psychiatric theorist, and Europe's leading anthropologist during the first half of the nineteenth century.

Book Synopsis

In James Cowles Prichard of the Red Lodge Margaret M. Crump offers the first in-depth biography of the early Victorian British scientist James Cowles Prichard (1786-1848). An intellectual giant in the developing human sciences, he was a pioneering psychiatric theorist in the formative years of the discipline and one of Europe's leading anthropologists. With evocative detail, Crump draws readers into the social and cultural milieu of early nineteenth-century Bristol, a world of pre-scientific medicine and the emerging fields of anthropology and psychiatry.

As the century's premier theorist of the common origin of all humanity, known as monogenism, Prichard asserted the affinity and equal capacity of all humans. Even though he was politically and socially conservative, Prichard worked behind the scenes to support abolitionism, and he advocated for the humane treatment of colonial British subjects. He challenged the rising tide of scientific racism starting to fester in the academic halls of Europe and the United States. He is also considered one of the pioneers of Celtic linguistics. His influential publications on neurological and psychological conditions called for the humane care and treatment of the mentally ill and mentally disabled and protection of their civil liberties. Born into changing, challenging times, during a revolution in British culture and at the threshold of modern science, Prichard fully embodied the Age of Improvement.

Review Quotes

"Posterity has bifurcated James Cowles Prichard's contribution: historians of anthropology rarely mention his ideas on Alienism; psychiatrists know next to nothing about his ethnological work. At long last, these moieties have been brought together by Margaret M. Crump, who in a solid and sympathetic intellectual biography has regaled us with the first complete picture of this great Victorian mind."--German E. Berrios, emeritus professor of the epistemology of psychiatry at the University of Cambridge


"James Cowles Prichard achieved an international reputation for research on what he called the 'physical history of mankind, ' publishing pioneering volumes on what is now called anthropology. He did this in the midst of a busy medical practice in Bristol, as well as dedicated participation in Bristol's civic and scientific life. Margaret Crump does Prichard proud in this fine study of such a multifaceted man and his times."--William Bynum, professor emeritus at the University College London and author of Science and the Practice of Medicine in the Nineteenth Century

"James Cowles Prichard was Britain's most significant nineteenth-century, pre-Darwinian anthropologist and brilliant polymath. At long last, Margaret Crump has provided us with a much-needed, comprehensive biography of this exceptional scientist and scholar. Her archival and bibliographical scholarship are second to none and cover such exciting topics as Prichard's Quaker background and his antiracist support for the notion of the unity of mankind. I wholeheartedly recommend this gem of first-rate academic learning that has implications for current affairs in race and equality."--Nicolaas A. Rupke, Johnson Professor of History at Washington and Lee University and author of Richard Owen: Biology without Darwin

"Like other famous Bristol figures, including Brunel, Elizabeth Blackwell, and Humphry Davy, Prichard finally has his definitive biography. In this exceedingly informative and engrossing account of the life and times of James Cowles Prichard, Margaret Crump expertly weaves together the life, medical career, and anthropological writings of one of Bristol's most interesting past inhabitants."--Jonathan Reinarz, professor of the history of medicine at the University of Birmingham and editor of A Cultural History of Medicine in the Age of Empire

"Margaret Crump has done a great service in writing this lively, informative, and meticulously researched biography of the remarkable James Cowles Prichard, the visionary and humane English physician and anthropologist whose landmark Researches into the Physical History of Mankind was read by both Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. In telling the story of the eminent but often overlooked Prichard, Crump's wonderfully far-ranging book deftly interweaves the history of medicine, psychiatry, anthropology, linguistics, paleontology, evolution, and even a dash of Egyptology, illuminating the life and thought of this fascinating scientist in the context of his world-changing times."--James T. Costa, executive director and professor at Highlands Biological Station of Western Carolina University, and author of Radical by Nature: The Revolutionary Life of Alfred Russel Wallace

"Margaret Crump rightly points out that for such an eminent Victorian, James Cowles Prichard has been strangely neglected. . . . Crump brings out the connections between Prichard's career as a physician and as an anthropologist and discusses the influences of his Quaker faith and Tory politics on his scientific thinking. . . . Her study is well written, carefully researched, and full of interesting information."--Adam Kuper, fellow of the British Royal Society and author of The Museum of Other People: From Colonial Acquisitions to Cosmopolitan Exhibitions

About the Author

Margaret M. Crump is an independent scholar in nineteenth-century British intellectual and cultural history and works as an arts educator and artist in Bristol, United Kingdom.