Skull
This human skull, with only eight teeth left in the upper jawbone, was used by Sir Henry Irving during stage performances of Shakespeare’s play Hamlet.
The skull was donated to the museum in 1942, and according to the donor the skull was found at the Bull Hotel, Colchester by some workmen along with some Roman coins ‘…in the early part of the 19th century’. The skull and coins were immediately purchased by a Samuel Austin Snr, who was married to the daughter of the proprietors of the Bull Hotel, for a jug of ale. After that his son, Samuel H.S. Austin, Sir Henry Irving’s stage manager at the time, borrowed the skull for use in a production of Hamlet starring Irving at the Crystal Palace.
The smooth appearance of the top of the skull supports the well held view that Irving ‘stroked Yorick’s skull gently with his hand’ during performances in the 1870s. You can imagine Irving holding the skull, and while contemplating the temporary nature of life, uttering the famous line ‘Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.’
