Where … to find a brain in London

This isn’t a post about the mid-Brexit brain drain or a gibe at the intelligence of Londoners. Quite the opposite; it’s about where you can admire the brain of one of London’s greatest inventors and the father of computing – although great-great-grandfather of computing might be a more precise description. He was also the founder of the Royal Astronomical Society, a modernizer of the postal system, a mathematician, philosopher, mechanical engineer and failed politician.

Charles Babbage was born in 1791 and he dedicated his life to science. Not only his life. He specified that after his death, his brain was to be left to science. This was a future-thinking donation. At the time, medical researchers only had access to the corpses of convicted murderers or poor people; there was no way of investigating the commonly-held belief that the brains of intelligent people would somehow look very different.

Babbage died in 1871 at the age of 79 and his brain was donated by his son Henry to the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons in London. It was preserved in alcohol for 36 years until it was dissected by the famous neuroscientist Sir Victor Horsley in 1907. In his detailed report published 2 years later, Sir Victor reminds us that:

the whole organ has uniformly shrunk and has lost one third of its weight.

The left half of Babbage’s brain – to be more precise, the left sagittal section – is still at the Hunterian Museum. It is one of the many highlights of their incredible collection of pickled body parts – both healthy and diseased. Unfortunately, the museum is closed until late 2020 while the Royal College of Surgeons building is being redeveloped. As an avid fan of this small museum, it will be a long wait – and a good opportunity to visit a new museum the next time that I’m in London.

In the meantime, the right sagittal section (and the intact cerebellum) is on display just 4 miles away at the Science Museum in Kensington. Here you will also find a working version of Babbage’s intricate Difference Engine built from his original plans and finished just in time for the 200th anniversary of his birth in 1991. It too gives us an insight into the complex workings of one of the 19th century’s greatest brains.

Where?
  • Right half: The Science Museum, Exhibition Road, London SW7.
  • Left half (from ca. Autumn 2020): The Hunterian Museum at The Royal College of Surgeons, 35-43 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PE.

For another London museum tip, read my post Where … to find a museum with moles.