CROMWELL'S HEAD

Evening Star, Issue 20133, 25 March 1929, Page 11

CROMWELL'S HEAD

STILL PRESERVED id LONDON A correspondence regarding the facial appearance of Oliver Cromwell recently ran in the columns of the ‘ .Sunday Times,’ London, having been initiated by a man who wished particularly to learn the truth about the shape of the Protector’s nose. Later Evelyn L. Few wrote as follows:—“None of your correspondent* seem to know that the ‘embalmed head of Oliver Cromwell ’ is in existence and in the possession of the family of the late Horace Wilkinson. I have myself seen it on more "than one occasion. Jt is never publicly shown, but as a friend of the Wilkinson family I have taken people to see it from time to time. Cromwell's hair never turned white. The, brown chestnut hair is still seen and the growth of beard on the chin, as for the last few months lie went in fear of his life and refused to he shaved. “Ail the documents about this relic are with the head, and some time next year I am hoping to be allowed to arrange for a lecture on the. subject, when they will be read in full, and pictures of the head shown. The .head fell down from Westminster . Hatl twenty-five years after it had been there, and was taken home by a ,sentinel. It shows the iron spike on which it had been put, as it broke off below the head. It shows also two cuts where it was hacked off at Tyburn, which fits in with the historical accounts of the time.”- . .