minster Hospital from 1834 till 1838, Thurnam was appointed medical superintendent of the Friends' retreat in York. That post he held until 1849. The Wiltshire county asylum at Devizes was then being built, and the committee selected Thurnam to be medical superintendent. It was opened in 1851, and he remained in active charge until his death.
Thurnam's leisure was devoted to the elucidation of the statistical facts of insanity and investigations of anthropological and antiquarian interest. He was twice elected president of the Medico-Psychological Association.
While at the Westminster Hospital he had gained some reputation from his observations on aneurism of the heart. In 1843 he published ‘Observations and Essays on the Statistics of Insanity, and on Establishments for the Insane.’ This work contained a reprint of the ‘Statistics of the York Retreat,’ first issued in 1841, together with an historical and descriptive sketch of that institution. Thurnam's work has proved a sure foundation for subsequent statistical studies of insanity. After his removal to Wiltshire he gave special consideration to craniology. In 1865, with Dr. Joseph Barnard Davis [q. v.], he published a work in two volumes under the title ‘Crania Britannica,’ and the same year he wrote an important paper on the ‘Two Principal Forms of Ancient British and Gaulish Skulls,’ which was reprinted from the ‘Memoirs’ of the Anthropological Society of London (vol. i.), 1865. Thurnam was indefatigable in exploring ancient British barrows, and communicated his results to the Society of Antiquaries (of which he was a fellow) in 1869. During the later years of his life he collected a large number of skulls and objects of antiquity. The former were transferred to the university of Cambridge, the latter are in the British Museum. Although later authorities are of opinion that craniology affords no trustworthy data for ethnical classifications, yet ethnology has still to depend mainly upon comparative tables of cranial capacity and the form of the skulls of different races, and even of different individuals. In this respect Thurnam's work is of enduring value. Two short papers deserve mention, one on ‘Synostoses of the Cranial Bones regarded as a Race Character’ (Nat. Hist. Rev. 1865), and the other on the ‘Weight of the Human Brain’ (Journ. of Ment. Science, 1868). Thurnam recognised the importance of the obliteration of the sutures of the skull, which he had observed in the dolichocephalous crania of the stone age, but not in the brachycephalous crania of the bronze period. His conclusion was that this is a strictly race character.
Thurnam died at Devizes on 24 Sept. 1873. On 18 June 1851 he was married to Frances Elizabeth, daughter of Matthew Wyatt, a metropolitan police magistrate, and sister of Sir Matthew Digby Wyatt [q. v.] By her he left three sons.
[Obituary notices in Journal of Mental Science, 1873, Medical Times and Gazette, and Wilts Archæol. Mag.; family information; personal knowledge.]
THURSBY, JOHN de (d. 1373), archbishop of York. [See Thoresby.]
THURSTAN or TURSTIN (d. 1140), archbishop of York, was son of Anger or Auger, prebendary of St. Paul's, London, by his wife Popelina. His brother Audoen succeeded to his father's prebend, was bishop of Evreux, and died in 1139. Thurstan was a native of Bayeux, and a prebendary of St. Paul's (John of Hexham ap. Sym. Dunelm ii. 30; Newcourt, Repertorium, i. 141, 169; Gallia Christiana, xi. 573; Orderic, col. 858). He was a clerk in the household and a favourite of William Rufus, became the secretary of Henry I, was much trusted by him, and, among other duties, was specially employed in entertaining the king's ecclesiastical guests (Hugh the Chantor). The see of York being vacant by the death of Archbishop Thomas (d. 1114) [q. v.], the king nominated Thurstan as his successor—it is said with the approval of Ralph d'Escures (d. 1122) [q. v.], archbishop of Canterbury—and he was elected at Winchester on 15 Aug. 1114, being then in subdeacon's orders (Eadmer, Historia Novorum, col. 496; Flor. Wig. sub an.)
Thurstan at once spoke to the king about the profession of obedience to the archbishop of Canterbury, and the king did not command him to make it. After being ordained deacon by the bishop of Winchester, he was enthroned at York, visited Durham, where he had an interview with Turgot [q. v.], bishop of St. Andrews, who was then dying, and the church of Hexham, and then returned to his own diocese. Two summonses came to him from Archbishop Ralph bidding him come to Canterbury to be ordained priest and consecrated bishop. Thurstan asked the advice of his chapter about the profession; they declared that they would leave the matter to him, and would uphold him if he refused it. He said that he would go to Rome, and would act as the pope might direct. Having, though still unconsecrated, received a promise of obedience from his clergy, he went to
