Archaeology Magazine - May/June 2013 - 44

“king of the resurrection men,” provides a damning
indictment. Following the capture of her husband at
the London Hospital burial ground and his subsequent
death in prison in 1822, she paid to have a pamphlet
published to blow the whistle on the illicit trade. In
it she writes, “It has long been custom to disinter the
persons buried in the London hospital ground for the
use of the anatomical school attached to that institution
or if not required by that school for the use of anyone
who was willing to purchase them.”
The hospital chaplain, Reverend William Valentine,
writes in his diary entry for July 2, 1829, about a bodyRemains in the London Hospital cemetery bear cut marks similar to
snatching incident: “On Monday morning some wretches
those seen in contemporary anatomy textbooks. In this case, the third
had disinterred the body from the ground, but patients
to fifth lumbar vertebrae and the sacrum (from the base of the spine),
saw them from the ward window about 5 o’clock. The
have been sawed in a manner depicted in Gray’s Anatomy.
fellows left the body in a sack, partially covered, in the
by the cemetery straddles crucial changes in the law regarding
grounds, to the horror and disgust of all who saw it.” Ironically,
where such research cadavers came from. Because of this, Powthe new finds suggest that many of these stolen skeletons were
ers and her colleagues have been able to use the bones to deduce
probably returned to the cemetery eventually—albeit in a very
whether the surgeons of the day respected these new regulations.
different state from when they were exhumed.
Comparing bones that predate the Anatomy Act with
he Large number of dissected skeletons indicate that
those postdating it, Powers and her colleagues have been
the London Hospital medical school was very active
able to assess the impact of the new legislation. A handwritat the time, but who were these people the students
ten addition to the hospital bylaws on October 18, 1832,
were experimenting on? For most, the idea of donating their
suggests that procedures were tightened, stating, “every
bodies to medical science was abhorrent. So, prior to 1832,
body removed … for the purpose of anatomical examination,
the only legal method for obtaining a body for dissection was
shall, previously to removal be placed in a decent coffin or
to acquire that of an executed criminal, of which there were
shell and removed therein, and he shall give notice to the
nowhere near enough to supply medical schools. The extreme
Chaplin, of every such removal, within six hours after it takes
shortage of cadavers created a black market for “body snatchplace.” However, the archaeological evidence suggests that
ing”—digging up fresh graves and selling the corpses to medical
these words were mere lip service. “We actually see very little
schools through the back door.
change in the volume of dissections and the way they were
Known as “resurrectionists” or “resurrection men,” gangs
buried, suggesting that the Anatomy Act had little impact on
stole newly buried corpses to order. Though the practice
the practices being carried out,” says Powers.
was illegal, prosecutions for body snatching were rare. The
activities of the resurrection men were certainly macabre,
n addition to ProViding a Peek into the shadowy
but many have found a dark humor in them, most recently
world surrounding medical training in the early ninein the 2010 black comedy Burke and Hare. William Burke and
teenth century, the excavation of the forgotten cemetery
William Hare were perhaps the most notorious resurrection
has also revealed the living conditions and lifestyle patholomen; they were brought to court in Edinburgh in 1828 and
gies of London’s poorer classes in the East End. Some 170
found guilty of murdering 16 people and selling the corpses
of the 262 burials there contained complete skeletons. “The
for dissection. Public outcry from the Burke and Hare case
presence of whole and apparently untouched bodies within
triggered a change in the law, granting anatomists access
the excavated assemblage suggests a degree of hyperbole in
to the unclaimed bodies of those who died in workhouses
Ann Millard’s account,” says Powers. These complete burials
and hospitals. Known as the Anatomy Act of 1832, it was
illuminate the hospital’s function as an early emergency room
intended to increase the legal supply of bodies for dissection
and show how these East Enders lived.
and to cut off the black market. “One of the most exciting
A report from The Times newspaper on August 11, 1806,
things about this cemetery is that it was in use around a
details a typical accident that London Hospital surgeons
decade either side of the Anatomy Act, enabling us to see if
would have had to deal with. Four drunk bricklayers fell from
the law caused any changes in behavior,” says Powers.
the rafters of the building they were working on. The paper
Two-thirds of the graves in this cemetery were ordinary
reports, “One … was killed on the spot, and the others were
burials, clearly unexhumed. But it is possible that there had
taken to the London Hospital, one of whom has died since the
been many more ordinary burials that were then lost to the
incident, and the other two are not likely to recover.”
trade in cadavers. Documentary sources confirm this may have
While definitive proof is elusive, one of the complete burihappened to many burials at London Hospital. In particular, a
als in the cemetery could have been one of the unfortunate
pamphlet published by Ann Millard, wife of William Millard,
bricklayers. The skeleton is that of a 26- to 35-year-old male

ARCHAEOLOGY • May/June 2013

Archaeology Magazine - May/June 2013

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