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To: Director of Anatomical Museum Edinburgh University - Malcolm MacCallum
Burial for a Hero
The museum has an exhibit of the skeleton of Joseph Smith, an eighteenth century Edinburgh belt-maker. He was known in hs lifetime as General Joe as he roused the E people of Edinburgh on to the streets with his drum when resistance to the activities of the Town Council was thought necessary by the populace. Apart from the extremely dubious practice, given modern sensibilities, of having a known individual's skeleton on display because of his extremely bowed legs, caused by rickets, which gave him the appellation Bowed Joseph, he was an important figure in his lifetime and is seen by many as a heroic figure in Scotland's Radical history.
Why is this important?
Apart from the moral dubiety of continuing to have him on display, Joseph is illustrative of why we constantly need to re-interpret history and of how essentially 'ordinary' people have played an important part in such history. In particular Scotland's 18th century history is under revision and the role of activists like Smith in the eventual development of democratic political systems is only nowadays beginning to be understood. There was more to 18th century Edinburgh than the Enlightenment. In his time the idea of people's history was unknown- not today.
