AFP
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SYDNEY (AFP) – A few clippings of hair apparently taken from Napoleon Bonaparte on his deathbed have been found in Sydney’s Town Hall after the 130-year-old building cleaned out its vaults.
The tiny swatch of light-brown hairs had for years been stored in the archives of the imposing sandstone building along with a letter but nobody knows when, why or how they were received.
Margaret Betteridge, who has curated an exhibition of the curios uncovered in the building, said on Thursday she could not be sure the hair belonged to the deposed French emperor but that the accompanying letter made a good case.
In it, a Scotsman named Ned Todd explains that he was given the hair by a woman whose brother, a Major William Crockat, had been present at Napoleon’s death.
“If I mistake not she said that her brother (Major Crockat) had himself cut the lock from the head of the illustrious dead,” he wrote. (more)
