Edgar Thurston
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Edgar Thurston CIE |
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| Superintendent of the Madras Government Museum and Connemara Public Library | |
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In office 1885 – 1908 |
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| Preceded by | George Bidie |
| Succeeded by | J. R. Henderson |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1855 |
| Died | 1935 Penzance, England |
| Alma mater | King's College, London |
| Profession | Museum superintendent, zoologist, anthropologist |
Edgar Thurston CIE (1855– 12 October 1935) was a superintendent at the Madras Government Museum who contributed to studies in the zoology, ethnology and botany of India and published works related to his work at the museum. Thurston was educated in medicine and lectured in anatomy at the Madras Medical College while also holding his position at the museum. His early works were on numismatics and geology and these was followed by researches in anthropology and ethnography. He succeeded Frederick S. Mullaly as the superintendent of ethnography for the Madras Presidency.
Edgar Thurston was the son of Charles Bosworth Thurston of Kew, London. Schooled at Eton College, he then studied medicine at King's College, London, qualifying as LRCP in 1877. He worked as a medical officer in Kent County Lunatic Asylum and became a curator of the museum at King's College before joining the Madras Museum in 1885 as a superintendent.
Whereas early European ideas on phrenology were applied to identify mental traits of individuals, advocates of scientific racism used what they considered to be more refined anthropometric measurements to identify castes. Thurston was one such person. He believed that intelligence was inversely proportional to the breadth of the nose and claimed that he scrutinised this as well as handwriting when recruiting clerks in his office. He gave lectures to the students of the Madras University and sometimes to the Madras Police on practical anthropology during the 1890s, and he trained the Madras Police in the use of anthropometry for criminal identification. The Bertillon system had already been incorporated in the Bengal and Madras Police departments by the 1890s and Thurston's training was intended to help the police identify membership of what were then termed as "criminal castes".
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