The conclusion of Dr Hunt’s speech, the newspapers inform us, was ‘received with mingled cheers and hisses’.17 William Craft then rose to respond. He began by rejecting Hunt’s suggestion that the physical attributes of Africans were markers of any innate inferiority, remarking that, ‘The thickness of the skull of the negro had been wisely arranged by Providence to defend the brain from the tropical climate in which he lived. If God had not given them thick skulls, their brains would probably have become very much like those of many scientific gentlemen of the present day.’18
