Early Life and Family
Joseph Carey Merrick was born 5 August 1862 at 50 Lee Street in Leicester to Joseph Rockley Merrick and his wife Mary Jane (née Potterton). Joseph Rockley Merrick (c. 1835 – 1897) was the son of London-born weaver Barnabas Merrick who moved to Leicester during the 1820s or 1830s, and his third wife Sarah Rockley. Mary Jane Potterton (c. 1834 – 1873) was the daughter of a Yorkshire agricultural labourer and had some form of physical disability. As a young woman she worked as a domestic servant in Leicester before marrying Joseph Rockley Merrick, then a brougham driver, in 1861. The following year, Joseph Carey Merrick was born, apparently healthy, and had no outward symptoms of any disorder for the first few years of his life. Named after his father, he was given the middle name Carey by his mother, a Baptist, after the preacher William Carey. The Merricks had two more children, William Arthur (born 1866) who died of scarlet fever aged four and Marion Eliza (born 1867), who was born with physical disabilities and died in 1891.
A pamphlet entitled "The Autobiography of Joseph Carey Merrick", produced c. 1884 to accompany his exhibition, states that he started to display symptoms at approximately five years of age, with "thick lumpy skin ... like that of an elephant, and almost the same colour". According to a 1930 article in the Illustrated Leicester Chronicle, he began to develop swellings on his lips at the age of 21 months, followed by a bony lump on his forehead and a loosening and roughening of the skin. As he grew, a noticeable difference between the size of his left and right arms appeared and both his feet became significantly enlarged. The Merrick family explained his symptoms as the result of Mary's being knocked over and frightened by a fairground elephant while she was pregnant with Joseph. The concept of maternal impression—that the emotional experiences of pregnant women could have lasting physical effect on their unborn children—was still common in 19th-century England. Merrick held this belief about the cause of his affliction for his entire life.
In addition to his deformities, at some point during his childhood, Merrick suffered a fall and damaged his left hip. This injury became infected and left him permanently lame. Although affected by his physical deformities, Merrick attended school and enjoyed a close relationship with his mother. She was a Sunday School teacher, and his father worked as an engine driver at a cotton factory, as well as running a haberdashery business. On 19 May 1873, less than three years after the death of her younger son William, Mary Jane Merrick died from bronchopneumonia. Joseph Rockley Merrick moved with his two children to live with Mrs. Emma Wood Antill, a widow with children of her own. They married on 3 December 1874.
Read more about this topic: Joseph Merrick
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early, life and/or family:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“I taught school in the early days of my manhood and I think I know something about mothers. There is a thread of aspiration that runs strong in them. It is the fiber that has formed the most unselfish creatures who inhabit this earth. They want three things only; for their children to be fed, to be healthy, and to make the most of themselves.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“I went back to my work, but now without enthusiasm. I had looked through an open door that I was not willing to see shut upon me. I began to reflect upon life rather seriously for a girl of twelve or thirteen. What was I here for? What could I make of myself? Must I submit to be carried along with the current, and do just what everybody else did?”
—Lucy Larcom (1824–1893)
“Every family should extend First Amendment rights to all its members, but this freedom is particularly essential for our kids. Children must be able to say what they think, openly express their feelings, and ask for what they want and need if they are ever able to develop an integrated sense of self. They must be able to think their own thoughts, even if they differ from ours. They need to have the opportunity to ask us questions when they don’t understand what we mean.”
—Stephanie Martson (20th century)