Robert Knox

Robert Knox, FRSE FRCSE MWS (4 September 1793 – 20 December 1862) was a Scottish anatomist, zoologist, ethnologist and doctor. He was the most popular lecturer on anatomy in Britain, where he introduced the theory of transcendental anatomy, but is now mainly remembered for his involvement in the Burke and Hare murders. Difficulty in obtaining cadavers for dissection after the passage of the Anatomy Act and disagreements with professional colleagues ruined his career, and a move to London did not improve matters. His later pessimistic view of humanity contrasted sharply with his youthful attachment to the ideas of Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire.

Knox devoted the latter part of his life to theorising on evolution and ethnology. His work on the latter was controversial, and was used to justify the view, shared widely by his contemporaries, that Anglo-Saxons are an innately superior people. This harmed his legacy, and overshadowed his contributions to evolutionary theory.

Robert Knox was born in 1793 in Edinburgh's North Richmond Street, the eighth child of Mary (née Scherer) and Robert Knox (d. 1812), a teacher of mathematics and natural philosophy at Heriot's Hospital in Edinburgh. As an infant, he contracted smallpox, which destroyed his left eye and disfigured his face. He was educated at the High School, where he was remembered as a 'bully' who thrashed his contemporaries 'mentally and corporeally'. He won the Lord Provost's gold medal in his final year.

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