George Combe

George Combe
George Combe, 1836 by Daniel Macnee
Born	21 October 1788 Edinburgh
Died	14 August 1858 (1858-08-15) (aged 69) Farnham, Surrey
Nationality	British
Fields	phrenology writer
Known for	phrenology

George Combe (21 October 1788 – 14 August 1858) was a Scottish lawyer and the leader of – and the spokesman for – the phrenological movement for more than twenty years. He founded the Edinburgh Phrenological Society in 1820 and was the author of the highly influential The Constitution of Man (1828). Combe trained in Scots law and had an Edinburgh solicitor's practice. In his later years, after a successful marriage in 1833, Combe devoted himself to international travel in the promotion of phrenology.

George Combe was born in Edinburgh, the son of George Combe, a prosperous brewer in the city, and the elder brother of Andrew Combe. After attending the High School of Edinburgh and the University of Edinburgh, Combe entered a lawyer's office in 1804; and, in 1812, he began his own practice.

The Combe family lived together in a large home at 25 Northumberland Street in the New Town until at least 1833.

In 1815, the Edinburgh Review contained an article on the system of "craniology" of Franz Joseph Gall and Johann Gaspar Spurzheim, which was denounced as "a piece of thorough quackery from beginning to end." When Spurzheim came to Edinburgh in 1816, Combe was invited to a friend's house where he watched Spurzheim dissect a human brain. Impressed by this demonstration, he attended the second series of Spurzheim's lectures. Investigating the subject for himself, he became satisfied that the fundamental principles of phrenology were true—namely

In 1820, Combe helped to found the Phrenological Society of Edinburgh, which in 1823 began to publish a Phrenological Journal. Through his lectures and writings, Combe attracted public attention to phrenology on Continental Europe and in the United States, as well as in his native United Kingdom.

Combe began to lecture at Edinburgh in 1822, and published a Manual called Elements of Phrenology in June 1824. He took private tuition in elocution; and contemporaries described him as clever and opinionated. Combe's discussions had an air of confidentiality and rather theatrical urgency. Converts came in, new societies sprang up, and controversies began. A second edition of the Elements, 1825, was attacked by Francis Jeffrey in the Edinburgh Review for September 1825. Combe replied in a pamphlet and in the journal. Sir William Hamilton delivered addresses to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1826 and 1827 attacking the phrenologists. A sharp controversy followed, including challenges to public disputes and mutual charges of misrepresentation, in which Spurzheim took part. The correspondence was published in the fourth and fifth volumes of the Phrenological Journal.