The Diary of a Resurrectionist, 1811-1812 Part 2

"EDW. NOURSE, a.s.sistant Surgeon and Lithotomist to the said Hospital."

Percivall Pott, who was apprenticed to Nourse, followed his master's example, and lectured on Surgery. In 1737 we find Dr. Fr. Nicholls advertising thus:

"On Wednesday, the 2nd of February, at the House below the Bull Head, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, at five in the evening, will begin a Course of Anatomy and Physiology, introductory to the study and practice of Physick in all its branches by Fr. Nicholls, M.D. N.B. A compendium referring to the several matters, explain'd in these Lectures, is sold by John Clarke, under the Royal Exchange, and F. Woodward, at the Half Moon, within Temple Bar, Booksellers."

The following is the advertis.e.m.e.nt of Caesar Hawkins, from a newspaper of 1739:

"In Pall Mall Court, in Pall Mall. On Thursday, the 5th of February next, will begin a Course of Anatomy, with the princ.i.p.al Operations in Surgery and their suitable Bandages, by Caesar Hawkins, Surgeon to St. George's Hospital."

Joshua Brookes' advertis.e.m.e.nt, in 1814, ran as follows:

"THEATRE OF ANATOMY, BLENHEIM STREET, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.

"The Summer Course of Lectures on Anatomy, Physiology, and Surgery, will be commenced on Monday, the 6th of June, at seven o'clock in the morning. By Mr. Brookes.--Anatomical Converzationes will be held weekly, when the different Subjects treated of will be discussed familiarly, and the Students' views forwarded. To these none but Pupils can be admitted. s.p.a.cious Apartments, thoroughly ventilated, and replete with every convenience, will be open at five o'clock in the morning, for the purposes of Dissecting and Injecting, when Mr.

Brookes attends to direct the Students and demonstrate the various parts as they appear on Dissection.

"The inconveniences usually attending Anatomical Investigations, are counteracted by an antiseptic process. Pupils may be accommodated in the House. Gentlemen established in Practice, desirous of renewing their Anatomical Knowledge, may be accommodated with an apartment to dissect in privately."

A very interesting account of the old Anatomical Schools, by Mr. D'Arcy Power, will be found in the _British Medical Journal_, 1895, vol. 2, p.

141. The paper is ent.i.tled "The Rise and Fall of the Private Medical Schools in London." It has been reprinted, with other articles, in a pamphlet, ent.i.tled _The Medical Inst.i.tutions of London_.

In Great Britain, as no licence was required for opening an Anatomical School, there was no limit to their number; there was also no regular legal supply of subjects, except the bodies of murderers, executed in London and the county of Middles.e.x, which came to the schools through the College of Surgeons. In Paris a licence had to be obtained before opening an Anatomical School, and bodies were regularly supplied to the licensed places.

With the rise and compet.i.tion of the Medical Schools in London, the difficulty of getting an adequate number of bodies increased. The absolute necessity of having a good supply for the use of students, so as to prevent them from going off to rival schools, caused the teachers to offer large prices, and thus made it worth while for men to devote themselves entirely to obtaining bodies for this purpose. At first the trade was carried on by a very few men, and without any public scandal, but the inducements mentioned above enticed others into the business; these were of the lowest cla.s.s, often professed thieves, and the fights and disputes of these men, one with the other, in churchyards, often made really more scandal than the actual stealing of the bodies. It was stated by the police in 1828 that the number of persons who, in London, lived regularly on the profits of exhumation, did not exceed ten; but there were, in addition to these, about two hundred who were occasionally employed. These latter individuals were thieves of the lowest grade, and the most desperate and abandoned cla.s.s of the community. The men worked generally in gangs, and would do anything to spoil the success of their opponents in the business. If a body were bought by one of the teachers from an outside source, the regular men would sometimes break into the dissecting-room and cut the body in such a manner as to make it useless for anatomical purposes. If this could not be done, they would give information to the police that a stolen body was lying in a certain dissecting-room. Joshua Brookes, the proprietor of the Blenheim Street, or Great Marlborough Street, School, was a victim in this way; a body, for which he had paid 16 guineas, was taken away from his school through information of this kind, and the police officer who carried out the business was, as a reward for his efforts, presented with a silver staff, purchased by public subscription. Brookes seems to have got on very badly with the resurrection-men; at one time, because he refused five guineas as a douceur at the beginning of the session, two dead bodies, in a high state of decomposition, were dropped at night close to his school by the men whom he had thus offended; one of these bodies was placed at the Poland Street end of Great Marlborough Street, and the other at the end of Blenheim Street. Two young ladies stumbled over one of these bodies, and at once raised such a commotion that, had it not been for the prompt a.s.sistance of Sir Robert Baker and the police, Brookes would have fared very badly at the hands of the mob which soon collected. The fact of his house being near to the Marlborough Police Court, on more than one occasion saved Brookes from the popular fury.

A subject was brought to him one day in a sack, and paid for at once; soon after it was discovered that the occupant of the sack was alive. This was not a case of attempted murder; the "subject" was a confederate of those from whom he had been purchased, and had, in all probability, been thus introduced to the premises for purposes of burglary.

The compet.i.tion of the schools had risen to such a height in the demand for bodies, that Brookes stated that for a subject, which would have cost two guineas in his student days, he had paid as much as sixteen guineas.

Nor was the cost of the body the only expense to the teacher. At the beginning of each session he was waited upon by the resurrection-men, who offered to supply him regularly with bodies at a fixed price, on the condition that a douceur was paid down at once. The teachers were powerless in the matter, and had either to accede to the offered terms, or to lose their students through not having a sufficient supply of subjects.

The scarcity of bodies was most keenly felt at the beginning of the session; the resurrection-men knew that they could command their own terms, and would not supply any subjects until the teachers had conceded all their demands. This was felt to be bad for the students, and Dr. James Somerville, who was a.s.sistant to Brodie at the Great Windmill Street School, in giving evidence before the Committee on Anatomy, said that "the pupils not being able to proceed for a certain time lose their ardour, and get into habits of idleness."

At the end of the session the resurrection-men again waited on the proprietors of the schools, and demanded "finishing money." In some papers relating to Sir Astley Cooper, which were referred to in a letter published in the _Medical Times_, 1883, vol. 1, p. 343, we read: "May 10th, 1827, Paid Hollis, Vaughan, and Llewellyn, finishing money, 6 6s.

0d. 1829, June 18th, Paid Murphy, Wildes, & Naples, finishing money 6 6s.

0d."

The cost of the bodies in this way to the teachers was more than they could charge to the students, and the deficiency thus created was made up by increased fees for the lectures. The expenses, moreover, did not end here. If one of the resurrection-men was unfortunate enough to get a term of imprisonment, the teacher had to partly keep the man's wife and family whilst he was serving his sentence. A solatium was also expected on his release from gaol. Mr. R. D. Grainger spent 50 in this way for one man, and several guineas in keeping the family of another Resurrectionist whilst the latter was in gaol. Sir Astley Cooper is known to have spent large sums of money for a similar purpose. The following may be cited as examples: "January 29th, 1828, Paid Mr. c.o.c.k to pay Mr. South half the expenses of bailing Vaughan from Yarmouth and going down 14 7s. 0d. 1829, May 6th, Paid Vaughan's wife 6s. Paid Vaughan for twenty-six weeks'

confinement at 10s. per week, 13 0s. 0d."

If any independence were shown by the teachers, and the demands of the men resisted, victory generally fell to the lot of the Resurrectionists. A teacher, perhaps, would refuse to pay the exorbitant demands, and would employ other men to obtain bodies for him. These were then watched by the regular gang, and information to the police was laid against them on every occasion. The bodies obtained by the irregular men were often taken from them by those who considered they had a monopoly in the business; these subjects were then hacked and cut about so as to make them quite useless for anatomical purposes. So the supply at this particular school would be very short, and great indignation would arise amongst the students, who had paid their fees, and therefore demanded an adequate number of bodies for dissection. The teacher was thus obliged to give way, and to accede to the demands of the regular gang.

The teachers formed themselves into an Anatomical Club for their own protection; by this means it was hoped to regulate the price to be paid for bodies, by agreement amongst the members of the Club not to give more than a certain amount. This agreement does not seem, according to Mr.

South, to have been very faithfully kept, and so, with new schools springing up and giving rise to still greater compet.i.tion, the teachers were as much as ever in the hands of the resurrection-men.

It must not be supposed that all the bodies which were supplied to the schools were exhumed. Many of them were stolen or obtained by false pretences before burial. Glennon, the police officer, who has been before mentioned in connection with Joshua Brookes, told the Committee that he had recovered between fifty and a hundred bodies for persons who had had their houses broken open, and bodies stolen from them whilst in the coffin awaiting burial. The following case, tried at the London Sessions in 1830, is an example of this:

"LONDON ADJOURNED SESSIONS.

"TUESDAY.--BODY-s.n.a.t.c.hING.--A well-known pilferer of graves, named Clarke, was tried upon an indictment, charging him with having stolen the body of a dead child, aged about four years, which had been under the care of a nurse named Mary Hopkins. The facts which came out in evidence are as follows: The deceased was the daughter of a woman of the town, residing in Shire Lane, and had been kept at the nurse's lodging, which was in the same neighbourhood. She died on a Friday, and Clarke, whose ears were described as 'quick to the toll of the pa.s.sing bell,' paid the nurse a visit the next morning, under pretence of hiring a cellar under the house.

He took occasion to notice the poor woman's son; said it was a pity to see the boy idle, and that he should have immediate employment, and called again with evidences of still stronger interest in favour of the family.

'By the way,' said he, 'I understand you have had a death lately.' 'Yes, sir,' said the nurse, 'a poor little girl is departed.' 'Poor little dear,' cried the s.n.a.t.c.her, 'I should like to look at the little innocent.'

He was forthwith led into the front parlour, where the body lay in a coffin, and observing that its position was favourable to his intention, he sympathized with the nurse, and said, 'We must all come to this sooner or later,' and then he went to get a half-pint of summut to comfort them.

The nurse disposed of a gla.s.s, which presently set her in a profound sleep, and when she awoke the body of the babe was gone. It appeared that the s.n.a.t.c.her, after having quitted the house, as if for good, returned, and opening the parlour-window hooked out with a stick the corpse of the child, and went off with it towards a market that is open at all hours, near Bridgewater Square. However, a police officer, who knew his trade, laid hands upon him, telling him he was wanted. The s.n.a.t.c.her then threw down the child and took to his heels, but was apprehended and lodged in the Compter. The nurse proved the ident.i.ty of the body. Upon her cross-examination, by Mr. Payne, she stated that the mother had not been to see the deceased for four or five days before the death. The Jury returned a verdict of Guilty, but some of them audibly spoke of recommending the prisoner to mercy, but made no appendage to that effect.

The Recorder sentenced the prisoner to be imprisoned for the s.p.a.ce of six calendar months."

Sometimes these stolen bodies were claimed after payment had been made to the resurrection-men, but before any dissection had taken place. The following refers to Guy's Hospital: "Returned to Vestry Clerk of Newington, by order of the Treasurer, one male and two females, purchased of Page, &c., on the 25th, who had broken open the dead-house to obtain them."

Bodies of suicides, and of those who had met with an accidental death, were frequently stolen whilst they were awaiting the coroner's inquest.

Often in these cases the body-thieves, after selling the subject to a teacher of anatomy, secretly gave information to the police where the missing body might be found. It was then seized by the police, and, after the inquest, handed over to those who claimed to be relatives; these supposed relatives were frequently confederates of the thieves, and by them the body was at once taken off and again sold to another teacher.

The following case is from a newspaper of 1823:

"SUICIDE AND THE BODY STOLEN.--Tuesday evening last a young woman of respectable and interesting appearance was observed for some time parading the banks of the Surrey Ca.n.a.l, Camberwell, in a melancholy mood, and at length she plunged into the water; on which a man rushed in after her and dived several times, but failed in recovering the body, which was not found till the following morning, when it was taken to the Albany Arms, near the Ca.n.a.l, for the Coroner's inquest, which was to have taken place on Thursday. On the landlord proceeding to the shed on Wednesday morning, where the body had been deposited, he discovered, that in the course of the night, it had been broken open, and the corpse of the female stolen away. He instantly repaired to the Police Office, Union Street, and gave information of the circ.u.mstance to the Magistrates, who gave orders that immediate inquiry should be made at Mr. Brookes's, where the body has since been discovered and given up. The poor woman was unclaimed, and the verdict of the Coroner's Jury was 'Found Drowned.'"

A favourite trick, in the carrying out of which a woman was generally necessary, was that of claiming the bodies of friendless persons who died in workhouses, or similar inst.i.tutions. Immediately it was found out that such an one was dead a man and woman, decently clad in mourning, in great grief, and often in tears, called at the workhouse to take away the body of their dear departed relative. If the trick proved successful, as it often did, the body was taken straight off to one of the schools and sold.

The parish authorities, probably, were not over particular about giving up the body, if the deceased were a stranger, as by this means they saved the cost of burial.

Subjects, too, were obtained from cheap undertakers, who kept the bodies of the poor until the time for burial. The coffin was weighted so as to conceal the fraud, and the mockery of reading the Burial Service over it was gone through in the presence of the unsuspecting relatives.

That some bodies were obtained by murder there can be no doubt. The exposure caused by the trials of Burke and Hare in Edinburgh, and Bishop and Williams in London, proves this.

The facts previously stated, however, go very far to exonerate the anatomists from the false charge (freely made at the time) of their being privy to these murders. It has been frequently stated that signs of murder could be easily seen, and that the fact of the body being fresh, and there being no evidence of its having been interred, ought to have at once suggested foul play, and to have caused the teacher to communicate with the police. But it must be remembered that the murders were generally very artfully contrived by suffocation, so as to leave no outward signs of ill-treatment. It was also no uncommon thing, for the reasons just given, to receive at the schools bodies in quite a fresh state, which had evidently never received sepulture.

An account of the _post mortem_ on the Italian boy, for whose murder Bishop and Williams were hanged,[11] has been preserved by Mr.

Clarke.[12] The examination of the body was carried out by Mr.

Wetherfield, of Southampton Street. There were also present Mr. Mayo, Lecturer on Anatomy at King's College; Mr. Partridge, his demonstrator; Mr. Beaman, Parish Surgeon; and his a.s.sistant, Mr. D. Edwards, and Mr.

Clarke. The boy's teeth had been removed and sold to a dentist, but beyond this there were no external marks of violence on any part of the body. The internal organs were carefully examined, but no trace of injury or poison could be found. Mr. Mayo, who had a peculiar way of standing very upright with his hands in his breeches' pockets, said, with a kind of lisp he had, "By Jove! the boy died a nathral death." Mr. Partridge and Mr. Beaman, however, suggested that the spine had not been examined, and after a consultation it was decided to do this. It was then found that one or more of the upper cervical vertebrae were fractured. "By Jove!" said Mr. Mayo, "this boy was murthered." The conviction of Bishop and Williams was due, in a very great measure, to Mr. Partridge and Mr. Beaman.

At the present day it is well-nigh impossible to understand the relations between men of honour and education, such as the teachers of anatomy were, and the ruffians who carried on this ghastly trade. It must, however, be borne in mind that, until the pa.s.sing of the Anatomy Act in 1832, there was no provision for supplying the means by which the student might be taught this necessary part of his professional education; the only way in which teachers could get material for giving instruction was by dealing with the resurrection-men.

It would have been quite impossible for the resurrection-men to have obtained the number of bodies they frequently did, had they not been able to bribe the custodians of the different burial-grounds. Sometimes they met with a difficulty in the shape of a keeper newly appointed to replace one who had been dismissed for being privy to these depredations. In most instances this was soon overcome; if, at the outset, the custodian could not be bribed, he could generally be induced to drink, and then, whilst he was in a state of intoxication, the body which the resurrection-men wished to obtain could be easily removed. After this first step there was generally very little difficulty in the future.

Sometimes, too, the grave-diggers not only gave information to the Resurrectionists, but acted as princ.i.p.als themselves. In Benson's _Remarkable Trials_ is recorded the case of John Holmes, Peter Williams, and Esther Donaldson. Holmes was grave-digger at St. George's, Bloomsbury; Williams was his a.s.sistant, and Donaldson was charged as an accomplice.

They were prosecuted before Sir John Hawkins at the Guildhall, Westminster, in December, 1777, for stealing the body of Mrs. Jane Sainsbury, who died in the previous October, and was buried in the St.

George's burial-ground. Holmes and Williams were sentenced to six months'

imprisonment, and to be whipped on their bare backs from the end of Kingsgate Street, Holborn, to Dyot Street, St. Giles. The sentence, says Benson, was duly carried out amidst crowds of well-satisfied and approving spectators. The woman Donaldson was acquitted.

The ranks of the resurrection-men were largely recruited from the keepers of burial-grounds. When these men had lost their situations for connivance at the stealing of bodies, they naturally joined their old a.s.sociates, and became part of the regular gang.

The bribery of the custodians will account for the large number of bodies often obtained in one night. Had there been the slightest vigilance on the part of the authorities, it would have been absolutely impossible for the resurrection-men to have spent the time necessary for their work without detection. The amount of time required for the work depended greatly on the soil. One man told Bransby Cooper that he had taken two bodies from separate graves of considerable depth, and had restored the coffins and the earth to their former positions in an hour and a half. Another man said that he had completed the exhumation of a body in a quarter of an hour; but in this instance the grave was extremely shallow, and the earth loose and without stones. If much gravel had to be dug through, the resurrection-men had a peculiar way of using their spades, so that the gravel was thrown out of the grave quite noiselessly.

On Thursday, February 20th, 1812, the Diary tells us that 15 large bodies and one small one were obtained from St. Pancras. No doubt this was simplified by the custom of burying several paupers in one grave. To obtain these it was necessary to dig all the earth out, so that each coffin could be dealt with; the men generally worked very soon after a funeral, and so the earth was much more easily moved than it would have been if they had been obliged to dig through undisturbed ground. When only one body was to be had, a small opening was dug down to the head of the coffin, which was then broken open, and the body was pulled up with a rope, fastened either round the neck or under the armpits.

In a memoir of Thomas Wakley, the founder of _The Lancet_,[13] the following account of the _modus operandi_ of the resurrection-men is given: "In the case of a neat, or not quite new grave, the ingenuity of the Resurrectionist came into play. Several feet--fifteen or twenty--away from the head or foot of the grave, he would remove a square of turf, about eighteen or twenty inches in diameter. This he would carefully put by, and then commence to mine. Most pauper graves were of the same depth, and, if the sepulchre was that of a person of importance, the depth of the grave could be pretty well estimated by the nature of the soil thrown up.

Taking a five-foot grave, the coffin lid would be about four feet from the surface. A rough slanting tunnel, some five yards long, would, therefore, have to be constructed, so as to impinge exactly on the coffin head. This being at last struck (no very simple task), the coffin was lugged up by hooks to the surface, or, preferably, the end of the coffin was wrenched off with hooks while still in the shelter of the tunnel, and the scalp or feet of the corpse secured through the open end, and the body pulled out, leaving the coffin almost intact and unmoved.

"The body once obtained, the narrow shaft was easily filled up and the sod of turf accurately replaced. The friends of the deceased, seeing that the earth _over_ his grave was not disturbed, would flatter themselves that the body had escaped the Resurrectionist; but they seldom noticed the neatly-placed square of turf, some feet away."