Joseph Millot Severn was an English writer, historian, and phrenologist born in Codnor

Codnor

Codnor is a Derbyshire village in the Amber Valley district, and a former mining community, with a population of nearly 5,000. It is approximately 12 miles from the city of Derby and 14 miles from Nottingham by road.-History:...

, Derbyshire

Derbyshire

Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains. The county contains within its boundary of approx...

.

Biography

Severn was born in 1860 and worked as a phrenologist in Brighton

Brighton

Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...

. He was President of the British Phrenological Association. This association started in the 1880s and was disbanded in 1967. "Professor" Severn wrote a number of books and funded some almhouses in his home village of Codnor.

Severn died at his home in Brighton in 1942.

Major works (incomplete)

• My village: Owd Codnor, Derbyshire, and the village folk when I was a boy (1935)
• Phrenology: Up to date (1912)
• Popular phrenology (1913)
• Phrenological and physiological chart (1905) [Brighton Phrenological Institution]
• Joseph Severn: Letters And Memoirs (Nineteenth Century Series) - by Joseph Severn, Grant F. Scott, Ashgate Publishing (2005)