Colourful Characters: Petrus Camper

On 9 December 2025, it will have been exactly 400 years since Ubbo Emmius, the founder of the University of Groningen, passed away. In his tracks, various people who worked and studied there through the centuries made the UG a brighter place. Some of them have been exceptionally important, due to their remarkable achievements, ideas, and activities. This series sheds a light on some of these ‘Colourful Characters’. This week: Petrus Camper.

14 November 1764: Petrus Camper delivers a famous speech in the Academy Church in Groningen

Petrus Camper gives a lecture in the Academy Church '... on the origin and skin colour of Black people'. He believed it was acceptable to distinguish between people, but he believed that these differences were only superficial. Deep down, in their essence, all people were equal. He based this view on his own findings. Camper therefore argued that we have no right to take away the freedom of other people. In doing so, he opposed the prevailing practices of slavery, a century before its abolition.

Anatomical research

Petrus Camper is best known for his measurements of the 'facial angle', which he used to classify people into different 'ethnic groups'. For him, this had nothing to do with racism: he was only classifying. In the 19th century, however, racial scientists used his work for other purposes, which tarnished his reputation. He was very interested in animals and human anatomy, and needed extensive material for his comparative anatomical research. He used colonial contacts, including acquaintances and former students who had settled across the world, to collect human remains and animals — both dead and alive — without permission. Petrus Camper’s work and collection later became controversial because of their colonial aspect and the scientific racism of the 19th and 20th centuries. Despite his nuances and intentions, Camper’s descriptions of racial differences contributed to the use of science to validate racism in later centuries.

From Franeker to Amsterdam

Camper was already a renowned scientist and celebrated lecturer when he arrived in Groningen in 1763. Born in Leiden in 1722, he received a broad scientific education at Leiden University. After obtaining his doctorate, he undertook an academic tour of Europe. In 1750, he accepted a professorship at the University of Franeker. There he married a rich young widow — a marriage that instantly made him one of the largest estate proprietors in Friesland. After Franeker, he spent five years in Amsterdam. However, his wife longed to return to Friesland, and the couple settled on the Klein Lankum estate near Franeker. He also wanted more time for research, which led to a steady stream of publications. He also began to write an increasing number of critical articles on a variety of societal issues.

Camper in Groningen

Petrus Camper presented himself as a typical man of the Enlightenment: someone who thought independently, free from religious and social prejudices, and eager to put his knowledge to practical use. In 1763, the mayor of Groningen, Anthony van Iddekinge, succeeded in persuading Camper to move to Groningen by offering attractive terms of employment and suitable accommodation. Camper settled near the Hortus, the botanical garden with its many medicinal herbs and plants. In addition, he had the opportunity to teach his favourite subjects: anatomy, surgery, and botany. Students appreciated his lectures, as Camper was able to explain things in a clear and vivid manner. He supported his teaching with practical exercises and drawings he made himself. The number of medical students in Groningen increased significantly. In the Academy Church, anyone with visible ailments could come in every Thursday, after which they received treatment in the presence of other doctors and students.

Injustice

In addition, he started reaching an increasingly wider audience with lessons, lectures and anatomical demonstrations, both of humans and animals. However, the rhetorically gifted Camper, an attractive man with  refined manners, was not always out to please his audience. He also often held up a mirror to people and denounced injustice. For example, he stood up for girls who had unintentionally become pregnant and whose babies died shortly after birth — a common occurrence. The young mothers were often quickly suspected of having suffocated their children. This would be equivalent to murder by strangulation, which was punishable by death. How could one prove the difference between a stillborn baby and a murdered baby? Camper demonstrated that examining the lung tissue of the deceased child could determine whether the child had ever breathed. This could be a lifeline for girls who were not responsible for the death of their child. At the same time, Camper asked for understanding and more lenient punishments for those who had taken such actions out of extreme desperation. Since, these cases often involved maids, he also denounced the hypocrisy of the master of the house who had caused the girl to become pregnant against her will but escaped all responsibility. As Camper said: 'I am not pleading for crime, but for humanity in an enlightened age, in which the excessive severity of ecclesiastical laws has been removed...'

Fight against cattle plague

In 18th-century Europe, cattle plague was a feared disease. Infected cattle usually died within a few days. As a major landowner in Friesland, Camper had a strong interest in finding a solution. He immersed himself in the literature and gave public lectures in the anatomical theatre in 1769. With the help of Wouter van Doeveren and the Groningen city council, Camper started an inoculation programme, first in Groningen and later also in Friesland. The results remained underwhelming, and Camper lost some of his interest. However, the Groningen farmer Geert Reinders continued the inoculation trials, eventually leading to the discovery of an effective vaccine against rinderpest.

Back in Friesland

In 1773, Camper retired to his estate in Friesland. The people of Groningen regretted his departure. They saw him as the ideal scholar, one who was also committed to solving societal problems. In December 1780, the Italian Pietro Gandola, ‘bust maker of Amsterdam’, came to Groningen and advertised all kinds of sculptures in the local newspaper Groninger Courant. Among them were busts of Rubens, Van Dyck, Shakespeare, Voltaire and, especially for the people of Groningen, Petrus Camper. Camper was also active in an administrative role, serving as mayor of Workum, among other things. He was a socially engaged person, an intellectual polymath, and a researcher who pioneered work in various scientific fields. Or, as his contemporary Goethe called him: ‘ein Meteor von Geist, Wissenschaft, Talent und Thätigkeit.’[A blaze of spirit, science, talent, and activity.]

Petrus Camper in the city of Groningen today

Every resident of Groningen is familiar with the Petrus Campersingel on the east side of the UMCG. The road was constructed shortly after the eastern moat was filled in, around 1925.

Petrus Camper

• 1722: Born in Leiden on 11 May
• 1746: Doctorate in Leiden, philosophy and medicine
• 1750: Professor in Franeker, philosophy, anatomy and surgery
• 1755: Professor in Amsterdam
• 1763: Professor in Groningen
• 1789: Petrus Camper died on 7 April in The Hague
  

*) The University Museum Groningen is running the exhibition Verstrengelde verhalen : Wetenschap en Kolonialisme in de Collectie van Petrus Camper [Entangled Stories: Science and Colonialism in the Collection of Petrus Camper], which can be seen until 21 September. The exhibition shows how Camper’s legacy is intertwined with colonial structures and the growth of scientific racism.

For more Colourful Characters, see the overview page.