_The Relations of the Doctors and the Body-Snatchers--Need for a
change in the Law--A Curious Case in London--Introduction and
withdrawal of the Anatomy Bill._
The revelations following the execution of William Burke, in the
publication of his confessions, and in the paragraphs--more or less
authentic--which appeared in the newspapers from time to time, had the
effect of making the public alive to the dangers by which they were
surrounded under the then state of the law. To all reasonable men who
desired investigation for the benefit of suffering humanity, it was
painfully manifest that the supply of bodies for the anatomical schools of
the country was far too limited if any satisfactory result was to be
expected. And they were face to face with the equally painful fact that
the sacreligious violation of graves, and the even more sacreligious
"breaking into the bloody house of life," as Mr. Cockburn put it, had been
resorted to in order to give the bold anatomists of the time an
opportunity of investigating the science, on which, above all, human
happiness and pleasure on earth were dependent. Many were unwilling to
adopt the views which these facts forced upon them; others with a wise
enthusiasm threw their whole influence in their favour. The surgeons
themselves, seeing that under the existing state of things they were
regarded by many as allied with an unholy class of men, desired such an
alteration of the law as should put them on a more satisfactory footing.
They wished that instead of the purchase of bodies from poor relations
being done in what was almost a surreptitious and hidden manner, it should
be done under legal sanction, and without the semblance of moral
turpitude. This in itself was perfectly reasonable, and had been proven to
be right by the stern logic of facts; but the great mass of the people
were against it. Suggestions that legislation should proceed in this
direction were regarded simply as suggestions for legislation for a
favoured class--the doctors themselves--the fact being ignored that on the
extension of the accurate information of that class depended to a very
material extent the welfare and comfort of the whole nation, without
respect of persons. The public mind, therefore, required to be educated up
to the inauguration of a new state of things, which in the end would be
better for all concerned. But two or three smart lessons, in addition to
the severe one taught by the Edinburgh revelations, were required before
Parliament could be turned in the right direction.
In January, 1829, while Burke was lying in Caltonhill jail, Edinburgh,
under sentence of death, a case which showed the anomalous state of the
law, occurred in London. A man named Huntingdon and his wife were charged
with stealing the clothes of a man who had died suddenly while walking
along Walworth Common. "The investigation of the charge," says a
contemporary chronicler, "exhibited an extraordinary instance of the
manner in which dead bodies are procured for dissection." Mr. Murray, the
assistant overseer of the parish of Newington, stated that on the Monday
preceding the 9th of January, when the case was first heard, the body of a
man who had dropped dead on one of the streets of that parish, was brought
to the workhouse. Two days afterwards, the two prisoners attended at the
committee room of the workhouse, and affecting great sorrow, represented
that they were nearly related to the deceased, and that they desired to
have his body delivered to them, as they wished to have it decently
interred at their own expense. The parish officers, on this
representation, made enquiries respecting Huntingdon and his wife at the
place where they resided, and as nothing to their disadvantage was heard,
it was agreed that the body be delivered to them immediately the public
inquest as to the cause of death was concluded. On the Thursday the
inquest was held, and after it the prisoners again made their appearance
at the workhouse, and renewed their demand for the corpse, which was now
given them. While preparations were being made for its removal, they
became talkative, and informed the parish officers that the deceased was
Mrs. Huntingdon's brother, and that, having come to London from Shoreham,
in Sussex, about four months before, with eighty pounds in his possession,
he had led a life of dissipation, and squandered all in that short period.
This only tended to give a greater air of consistency and truth to the
statements already made by the prisoners, that the officials thought they
were not only doing right in giving up the body, but also that they were
saving the parish the expense of a pauper's funeral. This dream, however,
was soon rudely dispelled. In consequence of a quarrel which occurred
between the prisoners and a female companion, as to the division of the
money which the sale of the corpse had brought, the affair was brought to
light, and Huntingdon and his wife were apprehended. Of course they were
imposters, in no way related to the dead man; and on obtaining possession
of the body they had sold it to the surgeons of St. Bartholomew's
Hospital, receiving eleven guineas for their ware. An officer of the
police searched the lodgings of the prisoners in Southwark, and there
discovered the clothes which had belonged to the deceased, together with
a great variety of implements used by body-snatchers, such as
screw-drivers and wrenching machines for opening the lids of coffins, and
gimlets of all sizes. But not only did they appear to be engaged in
robbing the houses of the dead--house-breaking implements of all kinds
showed that they were at war with the living as well. But the most curious
part of the whole case was that instead of being charged with the theft of
the body, or with a misdemeanour which would cover that offence,
Huntingdon and his wife, under the existing state of the law, could only
be libelled for having stolen the clothes of the deceased, and for having
burglarious instruments in their possession.
A few weeks after this, on the 21st of March, 1829, Mr. Henry Warburton,
the Member for Bridport, obtained the first reading of a bill, intended to
free anatomists from the restrictions under which they pursued their
inquiries. This measure was supported by the Lord Advocate for Scotland,
Sir William Rae, whose experience in the inquiries in the Burke and Hare
trials was a strong recommendation in its favour. On the 7th of April Mr.
Warburton obtained the passage of a motion made by him, under which the
House of Commons appointed a Select Committee to consider and give effect
to the recommendations contained in a report prepared by a Select
Committee on Anatomy appointed in the previous Session. Those
recommendations were in accordance with what he and many anatomists
desired should be made the law of the country. That the details of the
bill, however, were not altogether satisfactory to those who were supposed
to be most interested in it, is evinced by the fact that on the 8th of
May, Mr. B. Cooper, the member for Gloucester, presented a petition from
the Royal College of Surgeons, praying to be heard in opposition to it.
The petitioners, Mr. Cooper stated, were friendly to the principles laid
down in the measure, but they wished to be heard on the details. The
presentation of this petition gave rise to a short discussion, in the
course of which the Edinburgh tragedies were incidentally mentioned. Mr.
Smith, the representative of Norwich, complained of a letter which had
appeared in the public prints, stating that Dr. Knox, of Edinburgh, was
guilty of the most intolerable criminality, and that he was unworthy to
be trusted. If Dr. Knox, he said, did not deserve this, the letter must be
reprobated in the highest degree. The petition was ordered to be laid on
the table of the House; but it is probable that this passing reference in
Parliament may have shown Dr. Knox that the position he then occupied was
unsatisfactory, and have induced him to seek the inquiry into his
relations with Burke and Hare mentioned in a previous chapter.
When Mr. Warburton's Anatomy Bill reached the committee stage on the 15th
of May, the member for Oxford University, Sir R. Inglis, moved that it be
an instruction to the committee that it be empowered to repeal so much of
the Act 9, Geo. IV., Cap. 31, as gave permission to the judges to order
the bodies of murderers, after execution, to be given over for dissection;
but Mr. Warburton strenuously opposed this motion, as he believed the fate
of his bill depended upon its containing no such provision. The view of
the measure taken by the great body of the people was fitly given
expression to by Lord F. Osborne, the member for Cambridgeshire, who, in a
subsequent part of the debate, said he must oppose a measure which gave
over the bodies of the poor and friendless to the surgeons; but the other
side of the question was as aptly put by Mr. Hume, in the remark that the
measure would be beneficial to the poor as well as to the rest of the
community. At the close of the debate, the bill was committed with the
instruction desired by Sir R. Inglis; and on the 19th of March it was read
a third time, and passed by the House of Commons. Lord Malmesbury stood as
sponsor for the measure in the House of Lords, which it reached on the
20th of May. His lordship, in moving that it be printed, admitted that it
was extremely unpopular out of doors, but urged its necessity; and on the
motion of the Earl of Shaftesbury it was read a third time. However, under
the whole circumstances, it was deemed expedient, on the 5th of June, to
withdraw the bill, and in the discussion to which this proposal led, the
Earl of Harewood stated that, with respect to the horrid proceedings at
Edinburgh, it was a disgrace to the country that they had not been
investigated more fully, and that the public had not been informed of the
result of the investigation. All that the public really knew was that
fifteen or sixteen murders had been committed.
The withdrawal of the bill was a great satisfaction to many, both in and
out of Parliament; but the agitation for some such alteration of the law
continued unabated. It required another severe lesson to bring public
opinion into a state ripe for the change.