"Dr Crowther was suspended as an honorary medical officer at Hobart's hospital after he broke into the morgue at night and desecrated a human corpse.
His plan was to locate the body of William Lanne as he believed he and his friend Truganini were the last “full-blooded” Tasmanian Aboriginals. He then chopped off the man’s head, stole his skull and replaced it with that of a white man. Mr Lanne’s skull was then posted to the Royal College of Surgeons in London.
Mr Lanne and Truganini were survivors of efforts by Tasmania to round up and capture the state's Aboriginals and relocate them to windswept Flinders Island where many of them died. This followed ongoing acts of violence, sexual assault and land theft by white settlers."
