by Bob Curran
King of the Corpses
In 19th-century London, “King of the Corpses” was undoubtedly Ben Crouch. The son of a carpenter who sometimes earned his living as a boxer and prizefighter, Crouch had at one time been a porter in Guy’s Hospital, which gave him the contacts and the inclination to be effective in the resurrection trade. More or less abandoning the prize-fighting trade, Crouch turned his attention to grave robbing and made quite a nice living out of it. He began to gather a small gang around him: Bill Harnett and his brother Jack, who hated Crouch and his vicious ways, but nevertheless stuck with him; Tom Light, a person of “low intellect,” who was arrested for wheeling a dead body on a barrow in broad daylight; Joseph Napier, a former seaman who worked as a grave digger in the Spa Fields in Clerkenwell (a useful member to have in the gang); along with several others. Ben Crouch was a dandy, sly, and vicious bully, but this didn’t stop the surgeons at the various hospitals from dealing with him. And the trade paid enough for Crouch to dress in the finest clothes and strut around parts of London as if he owned the city. For many years, he and his gang remained among the foremost bodysnatchers in London, matched only by their great rivals, the Saffron Hill gang led by Israel Chapman.
Bodysnatchers
The bodysnatching season usually began in autumn, because the dark nights began to draw in. The bodysnatching trade needed the cover of darkness because the Resurrectionists worked by the light of shielded lanterns and candles that were placed in glass jars to cut down on the light, so they did not draw attention to themselves. It was also the time when the new terms were starting in hospital anatomy schools and surgeons were in need of fresh corpses. Bodysnatchers such as Crouch would present themselves at the surgeon’s office and begin to “take orders” for the coming months. Their clients were not common doctors, for Crouch would have counted many of the prominent surgeons and anatomists of the day as his clients. Among them were Sir Charles Bell, Sir Joshua Brooks of the prestigious Blenheim Street surgeries, and John Taunton, founder of the London Truss Society. Although they disliked Crouch, these surgeons knew that he had a reputation for “delivering the goods,” and were prepared to work with him and his like.
Many of the Resurrectionsts, including both the Crouch and Saffron Hill gangs, drew their “commodities” from the churchyard of Christchurch in Spitalfields. Indeed, so widespread were the instances of resurrections in that area that many people were actually afraid to be buried there because they did not want their remains to be desecrated. An example of the place’s reputation is shown in the late 1700s when 73-year-old Mary Mason was buried at Christ Church in a coffin that was covered in bands of lead and secured with a padlock, in order to avoid the attentions of the Resurrectionists. Other families either employed watchmen or stood guard themselves to keep watch over the graves of their loved ones, lest their bodies be dug up and transported away for medical dissection. It was not only in London cemeteries that this occurred but also at other churches throughout the country. Many local authorities permitted such vigils to last for several weeks or more, because, after a certain period of time, the body was considered to be beyond use for dissection purposes. When there were fewer burials, Crouch and his associates usually resorted to murder without too much difficulty.
Around the same time that Ben Crouch and Israel Chapman were operating in London, Irish bodysnatchers were also serving the needs of the College of Surgeons in Dublin. Most famous of the Irish Resurrectionists was the eccentric George “Crazy Crow” Hendrick, who served several terms in jail for his nocturnal activities. Crazy Crow was a wild-looking, violent, and extremely drunken character who, unlike the dapper Ben Crouch, had no illusions about his social status or appearance. He took to distributing copies of his picture together with an unflattering poem that he probably composed himself:
With a look ferocious and with beer replete,
See Crazy Crow beneath his minstrel weight,
His voice as frightful as great Etna’s roar,
Which spreads its horrors to the distant shore.
Equally hideous is his well-known face,
Murders each ear till whiskey makes it cease.
Crazy Crow’s favorite hunting ground in Dublin City was St. Andrew’s Church, where his disheveled form appeared out of the gloom after a funeral had finished, giving late mourners a fright. It was his custom to hang around such burying grounds like a ghastly phantom until it was dark, and then began his grisly and nefarious trade. In many respects, he resembled nothing more than a graveyard ghost, and legends of his exploits frequently haunted the pages of the Dublin newspapers. In 1825 he was arrested and thrown into jail, making the front page of most of the Dublin broadsheets—it did not discourage him, but made him all the more determined to continue with his dubious trade; on his release he was back in St. Andrew’s again. Similar to Ben Crouch in London he worked from time to time as a hospital porter, and this may have guided him toward the corpses that he supplied to the surgeons. Later, when the 1832 Anatomy Act became a law, he gave up bodysnatching and became a maker of musical instruments—an occupation at which he finished his days. The Anatomy Act of Parliament stated that all anatomy schools must be licensed by the British Home Secretary under very strict guidelines, thus limiting some of the Resurrectionists’ clientele.
Although Crazy Crow was a bizarre and extremely eerie character, he was not the only such individual pursuing a ghastly trade along the Dublin streets. Of equal notoriety was “Billy-in-the-Basin,” a legless invalid who propelled himself around in a great metal basin or bath. Although a dwarf, Billy was believed to have prodigious strength, particularly in his arms. He was also considered to be extremely sly and resourceful, and he was remarkably adept at covering his tracks. This is why no definite location in Dublin is given for many of his activities; some say he worked in the alleyways off what is now Grafton Street near the City Centre, and others say he worked on Earl Street just off Sackville Street (now O’Connell Street). His modus operandi was always been the same: He would appear as a legless beggar in his basin asking for money in some dark entry. When some kindly soul would stop, Billy would claim to have some secret to impart if only the person would stoop down. When he did so, Billy would grab the victim’s neck in his powerful hands and break it. Like a predatory animal, he would drag the dead body into his alleyway, where he would rob it and later give it to the Resurrectionists.
Similar to their English counterparts, Dublin surgeons were not extremely particular about where they obtained the dead bodies for their anatomy lessons, and were quite willing to deal with the Resurrectionists and murderers if they could guarantee a steady supply of cadavers. They had no qualms about dealing with the likes of Crazy Crow or Billy-in-the-Basin. One of the most prominent Dublin surgeons of his day, Dr. Samuel Clossey, who reputedly operated a college of anatomy in Dublin between 1786 and 1803, was said to have obtained “stiffs” from every part of the city for his surgery.
Around 1828 a rather scurrilous newssheet, detailing the activities and exploits of some of the more colorful bodysnatchers, began to circulate throughout Dublin. It claimed the “Wonderful Discovery of Barbarous Assassins Who Stop Live Children and Bleed them to Death.” The printer was a disreputable character known as Munster Jack (John Cramer) who operated a primitive printing press in Walker’s Alley. In a crudely printed publication, he recounted tales of half-dead children—near corpses—found wandering the streets after escaping from Resurrectionists who had assaulted them with sharp blades in order to drag them away and sell their bodies for medical science. Using the same printing press, Munster Jack also circulated a crude pamphlet concerning the horrendous activities of people such as Crazy Crow, Billy-in-the-Basin, and earlier Dublin Resurrectionists such as Richard Fox. This, together with reports from some Dublin newspapers, kept the notion of cadavers being taken from (or emerging from) their graves.
Burke and Hare
But perhaps it was Edinburgh that became most closely associated with the bo
dysnatching trade. Scottish surgeons enjoyed an unenviable reputation in the early medical world, and consequently their schools of anatomy and dissection were always well subscribed with eager students anxious to learn from them. The demand for cadavers for these establishments was therefore extremely high. Instances of grave robbery and infant murder were regularly reported in the newspapers all across Edinburgh. Around 1752, two women, Jean Waldie and Helen Torrance, were hanged in the city’s Grassmarket section for the murder of a 7-year-old boy with the intent of selling his body for dissection. His price would have been 3 shillings. Although charged with this particular murder, it was certainly not the first such outrage that both women had committed, and stories of their crimes were spread all through the city, towns, and villages beyond.
However, the most famous Edinburgh bodysnatchers were two Irishmen, William Burke and William Hare, whose names became known far and wide beyond the city. Between the years 1827 and 1828 (five or so years before the Anatomy Act put an end to such practices) Burke and Hare, together with Helen MacDougall and Hare’s wife, Margaret, made a lucrative living selling bodies to the Edinburgh surgeons at high prices. It is not clear whether the two men had known each other for a long period—perhaps they’d known each other as laborers through working on the Union Canal (also known as the Edinburgh and Glasgow Union Canal)—but when Burke came to stay in Hare’s lodging house they certainly struck up a friendship and a grisly business partnership.
Their first criminal exploit was to sell the body of an elderly soldier and military pensioner named Donald who also lodged in Hare’s rooming house. He suddenly died, owing his landlord 4 pounds rent. In order to recoup this money, Hare sold the body for dissection to a local anatomy school with Burke’s help. This gave both men a taste for the bodysnatching trade, and in November 1828, they managed to remove a cadaver from its coffin and sold it to the Edinburgh Medical School for around 7 pounds, which was a good sum in those days. The transaction also brought them first into contact with the celebrated surgeon Dr. Robert Knox, who would become one of their most regular clients. Shortly after, one of Hare’s other tenants, known as Joseph the Miller, took ill, and although he was not as ill as Donald had been, the scheming landlord resolved to do away with him—Joseph was already behind on his rent and was worth more dead than alive. Hare discussed the matter with Burke, who had served at one time in the Donegal militia (although probably only as a servant to an officer) and professed himself “quite handy” at doing away with people. Between them, they hatched a plan and, after Hare had plied the unfortunate Joseph with whiskey, Burke overpowered him and smothered him; they then sold his body to the anatomists.
In February 1828, Margaret Hare persuaded an elderly pensioner named Abigail Simpson to spend the evening in their home. Having plied the woman with a strong drink, Burke and Hare then did away with her, selling her body on to Robert Knox, who remarked on the “good quality” of the body and paid them 10 pounds. Shortly after, Burke brought two prostitutes—Mary Paterson and Janet Brown—back to the house for “an evening’s frivolity.” Brown left shortly after following a disagreement over money, but Paterson stayed on and was subsequently killed. Her body was so fresh when it was sold on that Knox paid a staggering 15 pounds for it. However, the enterprise was a risky one, for some members of the anatomy students had consorted with the prostitute themselves not long before and recognized her body on the anatomy slab in front of them. There was now a suspicion as to what was happening, although Knox managed to keep things quiet.
Spurred on by the money that they were making, Burke and Hare grew ever bolder and now resorted to murder in order to obtain “remarkably fresh” corpses. Burke had assumed the more respectable job of cobbler (an occupation at which he displayed a little skill) but in reality the trade brought him into contact with a number of people who could be useful to him in other ways—as cadavers. One of these was an elderly beggar-woman named Effie, from whom he sometimes bought strips of leather for his work, who was in rather poor health, but still able to go about. She had no immediate family and, in that respect, looked like an eminently suitable candidate for the attentions of Burke and Hare, because nobody would question her disappearance. He invited Effie to come out drinking with him, and, when she was well inebriated, he killed her, and both he and Hare sold her body to Knox for 10 pounds.
On their way home in the summer of 1828, the pair came upon two policemen carrying a drunk man between them. The officers told Burke that they were carrying the man home, having found him outside a public house, and asked if he knew where the inebriate lived. Burke replied that he knew him well, and if the officers would give him to them both he and Hare would see that he got home. The officers were happy enough to do this, whereupon Burke and Hare took him into a courtyard and murdered him, placing his body in a herring cart for transportation to the Edinburgh Medical School.
Later, Burke would meet another drunken man whom he began to lure back to his lodgings with promises of whiskey. On the way there, however, an elderly lady and her grandson stopped them—a child of about 5 or 6 years old—who needed directions. Burke immediately abandoned the old man and promised to personally escort the pair to the place they wished to go. First, however, he would offer them some “refreshments” at his own home. While Helen and Margaret looked after the child, Burke and Hare took the old woman into the back of the house where they plied her with whiskey; when she was suitably intoxicated they killed her by smothering her. However, there was a problem with the boy, who had become incredibly fretful about the absence of his grandmother, and, he refused to take any of the whiskey that was offered to him. Burke then invited the child to come and see his grandmother in the back of the house, and when he got him there, he broke the youngster’s back across his knee, killing him instantly. Both bodies were put in wooden barrels and later transported to Knox. Together both bodies fetched a sum of 8 pounds.
At this time, the murderers apparently split up, with Burke and Helen MacDougal moving out of Hare’s rooming house to some premises nearby. The cause of this was reputed to be that Hare wanted Helen MacDougal dead and that he and Margaret had plotted her murder. They had approached Burke, who was against the idea, and had warned MacDougal. However, once they had moved, the two “sack-’em-ups” returned to the old ways once more with all differences seemingly forgotten. However, their luck was starting to run out.
Burke and Hare’s arrogance started to raise suspicions in their direction. They had been extremely fortunate in the murder of Mary Paterson, whose body had been recognized (Knox had covered for them), but there had been some whispers among the students and there was still talk of involving the police. The murderers paid no attention, and their next victim was even more well known.
Eighteen-year-old James Wilson, or “Daft Jamie,” as he was known, was a simple soul—slow in his ways but kindly—and something of a character in Edinburgh’s West Port area. He was a particular favorite of many young children, who often gathered around him to hear his stories and riddles. Although he lived among kindly folk who often gave him a bed for the night, he had a widowed mother who lived close to the West Port area and whom he visited regularly. He had few possessions—simply a snuffbox and spoon. The box had seven holes in it by which the boy was able to tell the days of the week. In October 1828, Jamie ran into William Hare, whom he vaguely knew, and engaged in conversation. Daft Jamie was looking for a bed for the night, and Hare agreed “out of kindness” to let him lodge for the night in his lodging house. Delighted, Jamie accompanied him home, where Margaret prepared him a meal.
From a nearby public house Burke watched the proceedings and then made his way over to the house. Burke and Hare tried to persuade the boy to have some whiskey in order to get him intoxicated before they murdered him. Jamie took a few sips, said that he didn’t like and would take no more. However, he’d taken enough and was soon dozing fitfully, whereupon Burke began to strangle him. Jamie woke up and, being stronger than he looked,
wrestled with Burke, pinning him to the wall. Answering his partner’s screams for help, Hare came in, and together he and Burke overpowered and smothered Daft Jamie. They then took his body to Knox, who gave them 5 pounds for it. Jamie was so well known, even to the medical students of Edinburgh, that whenever the cadaver was uncovered, he was recognized immediately. Knox, who was the anatomist, denied it, but the identity was proven by a deformity of the right foot. Knox nevertheless proceeded, with undue haste, to the dissection, and hoped that the matter had dropped. However, Jamie’s mother showed up and went directly to the Edinburgh police in order to find out what had happened to her son. There were some investigations—the murder of Daft Jamie was not a high-profile case as far as the police were concerned—and several people recalled how they had seen the boy with William Hare, although Hare himself was never questioned. Nevertheless, it turned the eyes of the law to the grisly pair; they were now under police suspicion.
The last murder occurred only a few weeks afterward—on Halloween in 1828. While drinking in a public house, Burke met up with an elderly Irish woman named Mary Docherty who looked as if she might be a candidate for the medical school. Mary Docherty said she came from Donegal, and Burke claimed to come from the country as well. He also falsely claimed that his mother’s maiden name had also been Docherty. Believing him to be a fellow countryman and perhaps even a relative, Mary Docherty agreed to go home with him to have a few drinks and celebrate Halloween.
Back at his house, the lady was well received by Helen MacDougal and by James and Ann Gray, who were at that time lodging with Burke. As the evening wore on, Burke persuaded Mary to stay the night and asked the Grays if they would mind spending the night over at William Hare’s, which they readily did, but were told to return for breakfast in the morning.
