The common thought in Edinburgh was that he was culpable in the events; he was lampooned in caricature and, in February, a crowd gathered outside his house and burned an effigy of him.[136][lower-alpha 20] A committee of inquiry cleared him of complicity, and reported that they had "seen no evidence that Dr Knox or his assistants knew that murder was committed in procuring any of the subjects brought to his rooms".[139] He resigned from his position as curator of the College of Surgeons' museum, and was gradually excluded from university life by his peers. He left Edinburgh in 1842 and lectured in Britain and mainland Europe. While working in London he fell foul of the regulations of the Royal College of Surgeons and was debarred from lecturing; he was removed from the roll of fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1848.[14][140] From 1856 he worked as a pathological anatomist at the Brompton Cancer Hospital and had a medical practice in Hackney until his death in 1862.[14][141]