Pauper Corpses: Cambridge and Its Provincial Trade

Abstract

In early October 1883, on a bright autumnal morning, a tall, thin academic, dressed impeccably in a tweed hiking suit and sturdy leather walking boots, left London on foot.² Alexander Macalister was determined to walk in record time to Cambridge University. He had just been appointed to the Chair in Human Anatomy. His promotion was an important opportunity to raise his personal profile. Macalister put his best foot forward, displaying courage and endurance. It was a physical feat that he would repeat often throughout his prolific career to promote public engagement with the anatomical sciences. Macalister was the sort of character who made an immediate impact on his contemporaries. They recalled that he was always ‘robust in constitution and energetic in temperament’.³ In Victorian medical circles, he was soon regarded as a man of action and a spokesman for anatomists across the United Kingdom.