Burke and Hare | Grave Digging and Body Snatching!

Burke and Hare, Edinburgh’s most ghoulish residents!

In contrast to the increase in numbers of executions in the wake of the Bloody Code, the Judgement of Death Act 1823 saw the number of crimes punishable by death in Britain drop dramatically. Good news in theory, but since medical and anatomical schools were only legally allowed to dissect the bodies, or cadavers, of those who had been condemned to death, this led to an extreme shortage of dead bodies available.

However, the financial compensation offered by medical schools meant that some unscrupulous types soon found a way around this shortage of bodies, leading to a rash of grave-robbing by those known as resurrectionists.

Instances of grave-robbing became so commonplace that relatives were known to watch over the recently dug graves of their dearly departed and watch towers were installed in cemeteries across the land. The ‘fresher’ the body, the more money it was worth, thus it didn’t take long before grave-robbing graduated to anatomy murder – murder committed with the sole intention of providing the remains for medical research and attracting a monetary reward. The most infamous of which were the Burke and Hare Murders in Edinburgh, which occurred between 1827 – 1828.

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