_"Burking" in London--Apprehension of Bishop, Williams, and May--Their
Trial, Confession, and Execution--Re-introduction and Passing of the
Anatomy Act._
This other lesson, to which reference was made at the close of the last
chapter, was given through the medium of a case which occurred in London.
In many features the case was similar to that against the West Port
murderers, with the notable difference that the Englishmen did not go
about their desperate work with quite so much method and cunning as did
their prototypes in Edinburgh. They used a brutal violence which,
fortunately for the community, cut them short almost at the very outset of
their murderous career.
Shortly after noon, on Saturday, the 5th of November, 1831, John Bishop
and James May, both well-known body-snatchers, called on the porter of the
Dissecting Room at King's College, London. May was the spokesman, and he
informed the porter that he had a subject which he would give him for
twelve guineas, and he then proceeded to declare its qualities, much in
the same way as he would have spoken of an ordinary piece of
merchandise--"it was very fresh, and was a male subject of about fourteen
years of age." Mr. Hill, the porter, said he was not particularly
requiring it, but he would see the demonstrator, Mr. Partridge. There was
some haggling about the price. Bishop offered it for ten guineas, but was
ultimately forced to abate the sum by another guinea, promising at last to
send the body for nine. In the course of the afternoon the two men,
accompanied by a colleague of the name of Thomas Williams, returned to the
college, and with them was a street porter, who bore on his head a large
hamper. Taken into a room, the hamper was found to contain the body of a
young lad wrapped up in a sack. Hill saw there were some suspicious marks
about the head, and, besides, it was not in such a form as bodies usually
were when taken from a coffin, the left arm being bent and the fingers
clenched. The porter asked them what the lad had died of, but May, who was
in a drunken state, said that was neither his business or theirs. He then
informed Mr. Partridge of what he had seen and suspected. That gentleman,
without seeing the men, examined the body, and found there were about it
some marks and circumstances of a suspicious nature. There were the
swollen state of the jaw, the bloodshot eyes, the freshness of the body,
and the rigidity of the limbs. There was also a cut over the left temple.
Having made this examination, he sent for the police, and returning to the
men he produced a fifty pound note, telling them he must get that changed
before he could pay them. Bishop saw that Mr. Partridge had some gold in
his purse, and he said to him: "Give me what money you have in your purse,
and I will call for the rest on Monday." May, on his part, offered to go
for the change, but Mr. Partridge declined both proposals, and left the
room on the pretence of seeking the change himself. All this was but a
blind to detain the men until a strong body of police had time to arrive,
when all three were apprehended, and the body taken to the police office.
A subsequent examination of the corpse by three surgeons, one of them
being Mr. Partridge, showed that the lad must have met his death through
violence. The only external mark--that on the temple--was superficial, and
did not injure the bone; but between the scalp and the bone there was a
patch of congealed blood about the size of a crown-piece, which, from its
appearance, must have been caused by a blow given during life. On the
removal of the skin from the back part of the neck, a considerable
quantity--about four ounces--of coagulated blood was found among the
muscles, and this also, in the opinion of the surgeons, must have been
effused when the subject was alive. A portion of the spine having been
removed for the purpose of examining the spinal marrow, a quantity of
coagulated blood was found lying in the canal, and this, it was stated,
from its pressure on the spinal marrow, must have caused death. All these
appearances, and death, would, in the opinion of the surgeons, have
followed a blow from a blunt instrument of any kind. Subsequent inquiries
by the police brought to light the fact that the body had been offered to
the curator of Guy's Hospital and of Grainger's Anatomical Theatre, both
of whom declined to purchase it. They also discovered that May had called
upon a surgeon-dentist in Newington on the morning of the day he was
apprehended, and had offered for sale, at the price of a guinea, twelve
human teeth, which he said had belonged to a boy between fourteen and
fifteen years of age, whose body had never been buried. Some of the flesh
and pieces of the jaw adhered to the teeth, showing that great force had
been used to wrench them out.
On the question of the identity of the body found in the possession of the
three men, the authorities had what was apparently satisfactory evidence
that it was that of Carlo Ferreer, who had arrived from Italy two years
before, and who went about the streets of London with a cage, containing
two white mice, slung from his neck by a string. On the night of Thursday,
the 3rd of November, the boy and Bishop and Williams were all three seen
in the vicinity of the Nova Scotia Gardens, where Bishop resided, but they
were not in company. That same evening one of Bishop's neighbours heard
sounds of a scuffle proceeding from his house in Nova Scotia Gardens, but
paid little attention to it, as he considered it was simply a family
quarrel. A search through this house by the police led to the discovery of
two crooked chisels, a brad-awl, and a file. There appeared to be fresh
marks of blood on the brad-awl. Then in May's house in Dorset Street, New
Kent Road, there were found a vest and a pair of trousers, both marked
with what were evidently fresh stains. Buried in Bishop's garden were
found several articles of men's clothing, all of which were stained with
blood. Another incident that seemed to show that the body was that of the
poor Italian boy was that on the 5th of November Bishop's boys were seen
in the possession of a cage in which were two white mice. When the
productions were taken to Bow Street Police Office, where the accused were
confined, May said, when he saw the brad-awl, "That is the instrument with
which I punched the teeth out;" and the dentist, in his evidence at the
trial, said the teeth had been forced out, and he thought the brad-awl
produced would afford great facility for doing so.
This, in brief, was the case upon which the prosecution rested for the
conviction of the three men. The trial took place at the Old Bailey
Sessions on the 1st of December, and created the most intense interest
among all classes of the community. The court was crowded, and outside an
immense multitude had assembled. After a long trial the jury found the
three prisoners guilty of murder. The verdict was received in court with
silence, but when the result was known outside the people cheered
vociferously, and this they continued so long that the officers were
obliged to close the windows of the court, that the voice of the judge
might be heard in passing sentence of death. Only four days' grace was
given to the unhappy men, for their execution was fixed for the 5th of
December.
The day before their execution, on the 4th of December, Bishop and
Williams made confessions before the under-sheriff. In these documents,
which will be found at length in the appendix, they acknowledged to the
murder of the lad whose body was found, but they stated that he came from
Lincolnshire, and was not the Italian boy to whose identification so many
witnesses had sworn. Subsequent investigation, however, led to the belief
that the condemned men, and not the witnesses, had made the mistake. They
also declared that they had been concerned in the murder of a woman and of
a boy of about eleven years of age. Their method was to get their intended
victims to drink beer or gin, which they had drugged with laudanum, and
then, when they were in a stupified state, to lower them by a rope
attached to the heels, head foremost into a well at the back of the
Bishop's house. This act completed the work, and, it was thought, allowed
the drugged liquor to run out of the mouth. They thus acknowledged to
three distinct acts of murder, but they both declared that May was wholly
ignorant and innocent of all of them. Bishop had been a body-snatcher for
twelve years, and he had during that time obtained and sold over five
hundred bodies.
The evidence against May had all along been deemed defective, and this
full and unequivocal statement that he was unconnected with the murder,
procured a respite for him. When sentenced in court he turned to the jury
and said: "I am a murdered man, gentlemen." The communication of the news
that his life had been saved was itself almost the cause of his death. He
fell to the ground in a fit, and while he was in contortions it took four
of the prison officers to hold him; but he recovered in a quarter of an
hour.
By one o'clock on the morning of Monday, the 5th December, a great crowd
had assembled in front of the scaffold at Newgate, and by daybreak as many
as 30,000 persons were present to witness the last act of the law.
Bishop's appearance on the scaffold gave rise to a scene similar to that
at the execution of Burke at Edinburgh. The people hooted and yelled in a
terrible manner while the executioner put the rope round the murderer's
neck, and fixed it to a chain depending from the beam; and the
demonstration was renewed with vigour when Williams was brought out. When
the drop fell Bishop died instantaneously, but Williams struggled in the
death agonies for several minutes. The crowd then broke through the
barriers, and a scene that baffles description ensued. Forgeting itself in
the excitement of the moment, the mob rushed towards the scaffold, and in
the struggle with the police large numbers were injured. Many were
trampled under foot. By half-past seven o'clock that morning between
twenty and thirty persons were carried to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, all
seriously maimed. "Thus died," says a broadside published at the time,
"the dreadful Burkers of 1831." The author of the production called "The
Trial, Sentence, Full Confession and Execution of Bishop and Williams, the
Burkers," furnishes a very pertinent comment on the whole transaction.
"The month of November, 1831," he remarks, "will be recorded in the annals
of crime and cruelties as particularly pre-eminent, for it will prove to
posterity that other wretches could be found base enough to follow the
horrid example of Burke and his accomplice Hare, to entice the unprotected
and friendless to the den of Death for sordid gain." In accordance with
the terms of sentence, the bodies of the executed criminals were
"delivered over for dissection and anatomization."
While this terrible example of the dangers to the community under the
existing state of the law as to the study of anatomy was still fresh on
the minds of the people, Mr. Warburton again introduced his bill, slightly
altered in respect of details, into the House of Commons. On the 15th of
December, 1831, he obtained leave to introduce the bill, and it was then
read a first time. He moved the second reading on the 17th of January,
1832, but when the question was put that the bill be read a second time it
was found there were not forty members present, and the House had to
adjourn. However, on the 29th of the same month he was more successful,
and gained the second reading. After it had passed through several stages
in committee, Mr. Warburton, on the 11th of April, moved that it be
re-committed, and stated that he had been waited upon by deputations from
the College of Surgeons in Dublin, and another medical body, who desired
that the provisions of the measure should be extended to Ireland, which he
had not originally intended should be included within its scope. In
committee it was agreed to extend the bill to Ireland. On the 18th of
April, when it was again in committee, an amendment to the effect that the
disposal of the bodies of executed murderers for dissection should be left
to the discretion of the judges was negatived. The bill passed the House
of Commons on the 11th of May, and shortly afterwards received the
approval of the Upper House.