Body count
Up to the late 1700s, barber surgeons performed operations. Skilled in using sharp instruments, they offered a range of medical services. For example, bloodletting, general surgery, setting bones and pulling teeth. Anesthetics were yet to be found. So speed was essential.
Surgeons specialised in operations from the early 1800s. And with specialisation came a desire for better understanding. Pain-free operations were still some decades off. A patient still prized speed over skill. So live patients offered the surgeon little chance to learn or enhance skills.
Most surgeons first trained in general medicine. General practitioners also carried out operations and employed apprentices. Medical schools developed in cities and large towns.
Dissection was the best way for a student to learn about human anatomy. The Murder Act 1751 allowed a judge to stipulate the criminal's body was to be hung in chains, or delivered to surgeons for dissection. The latter option was much feared by convict and relatives alike. Relatives fought with medical staff to recover the corpse for proper burial. The public rather liked a spectacle. Having watched a hanging, crowds gathered to watch the dissection.
Before the 1800s, there were over 200 crimes punishable by death. Crimes such as pick-pocketing or destroying a fishpond were in the list. So there was a steady supply of cadavers for dissection.
Body snatching
There had long been an illicit trade in cadavers. The Judgement of Death Act 1823 made the death penalty discretionary for all crimes other than treason or murder. The result was a sudden and disastrous reduction in corpses available for dissection. And an opportunity for resurrectionists. For a decade, body snatching became pervasive in London and other cities. Newspapers whipped up a frenzy, reporting cases in great detail.
A fresh body earned up to £25 (today over £2,000). Without the benefit of refrigeration, resurrectionists worked quickly. Strangers appeared at inquests, asking about burial arrangements. Relatives used a variety of means to deter theft. They might defer erection of a headstone for some months. Heavy stone slabs were placed over the grave. Iron coffins were common. Relatives set watch after burial.
Resurrectionists were only interested in the corpse. Theft of grave goods attracted heavy penalties. Ownership of the body was legally a grey area. The worst punishment was a fine or short period in gaol. Authorities turned a blind eye.
Speed was important. The resurrectionists dug a tunnel diagonally down to the head of the coffin, starting several feet away from the grave. Breaking open the lid, they dragged the body out using a rope or long metal hook. Burial clothes were thrown back into the coffin and the tunnel filled and covered with turf. Visiting relatives were reassured when they saw an undisturbed grave. They didn't notice the patch of turf nearby.
Burking
Some resurrectionists took an easier path to fortune by committing murder. In 1831 newspapers reported the case of Caroline Walsh, an 84 year old vendor of small wares. Caroline went to lodge with a man named Cooke. Caroline's niece tried to dissuade her, saying Cooke was a body snatcher and his partner, Elizabeth Ross, a cat skinner.
The following morning, the niece could find no trace of her aunt. Cooke said Mrs Walsh had left the house early that morning. Caroline's bed had not been slept in. They found no trace of her.
In fact, Ross was the body snatcher and very much the major force in the partnership. The court described her as a 'large, raw-boned coarse-featured Irish woman'. At her trial it was stated '... her superior size and strength, and innate viciousness, enabled her to reduce her paramour to subjection ...'
Their 12 year old son made a full confession. Elizabeth Ross gave Caroline Walsh a sleeping potion that evening and suffocated her. Cooke and the son were in the room and looked the other way. Ross threw the body into a sack and delivered it for dissection the following day. There was circumstantial evidence Ross had committed several other murders. She continued to plead her innocence right up to the moment she was hanged and her body sent for dissection. Cooke and the son were acquitted.
The act of smothering to produce a cadaver was called burking. The term was named after William Burke, one half of Burke & Hare, who murdered sixteen people from Edinburgh over ten months in 1828. Hare turned king's evidence and confessed to them both committing the murders. Burke was hanged and subsequently dissected. Hare walked free.
Out of business
The Government passed the Anatomy Act 1832. Its sole aim was to cease the illicit trade in cadavers and put the resurrectionists out of business. The Act allowed bodies unclaimed after 48 hours from workhouses, hospitals and prisons to be used for dissection.
The Act did not define the term 'unclaimed'. The authorities did not have to inform relatives of a death. Neither had they to tell inmates of their right to refuse dissection before their death. The Act ignored body snatching all together, missing the chance to increase punishment. Possible dissection increased the fear of going into the workhouse. Rightly so. Almost all the bodies supplied under the Act came from the poor in workhouses.
Although the Act was unpopular and generated protests and petitions, it achieved its aim. The increased supply of cadavers removed the need for resurrectionists.
The Yaxley resurrectionists
In 1830, a sack containing a female body was found in a hovel just outside Peterborough. The body was initially identified as that of Elizabeth Billings, aged 23 years and buried a couple of days before. Elizabeth's body was reburied. A few relatives opened recent graves to check their loved ones were still interred. When the corpse of a shoe-maker named Hare was found missing, panic ensued. Over the next few weeks, hundreds of relatives checked graves.
A letter arrived from a Mr Grimmer, who had left Peterborough for London. He stated the body was not that of Elizabeth Billings. Her body had already been dissected. The body was that of a woman from Yaxley.
Jane Mason had been buried recently at Yaxley. When her husband checked the grave he found it empty. The supposed body of Mrs Billings was again dug up. When Mr Mason confirmed the corpse as that of his wife, they buried the body for a third time at Yaxley.
The 1831 Huntingdon Quarter Sessions sentenced William Patrick to twelve months' imprisonment for digging up the body of Jane Mason from Yaxley churchyard in November 1830. His accomplice, William Whayley, walked free after turning king's evidence. They admitted often selling bodies to Mr Grimmer of London. Mr Grimmer was never found.
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