Burke and Hare…the
Body-Snatchers....
In the early 1800’s in Britain,
medical science was proceeding at an ever-increasing pace with great advances
being made in surgical techniques. Many new types of operations were
being ‘practised’ on dead bodies by budding surgeons and
their teachers. The prisons, where there were hangings on almost a daily basis,
provided most of those bodies for dissection. There was little or no shortage
for the trainees....
However, early in the century, what was known as
the ‘Bloody Code’ was repealed. Since 1688, it
had made the punishment for fifty criminal offences death by
hanging. However, The Judgement of Death Act 1823 reduced this
punishment from the original fifty down to two – Murder and Treason.
Needless to say, this caused a sharp decrease in the number of executions and
with it the number of bodies that were available. A new source was
urgently required......
The law of ‘supply and demand’ quickly came
into play with characters that became known as ‘resurrectionists’ taking
up the gruesome art of ‘body-snatching’. They would watch for
funerals and later at night they would literally dig up the coffins, remove the
body and in many cases return the coffin to the grave and fill in the hole. In order
to prevent such a thing happening many relatives or friends of the deceased
would hold a vigil and stand guard over the grave for several nights after the
burial. In many other cases, iron railings protected the graves.
As even grave robbing prevented the surgeons and
their students from having a regular supply of bodies, once again the law
of ‘supply and demand’ again took over to provide for the
shortage. Several unscrupulous people, not only men but these also included
women, decided to not even wait for the funeral but began claiming the bodies
before the person even died.
Burke and Hare were two such
likely-lads who were born in the North
of Ireland and moved to Scotland about 1820. William
Burke was born in County
Tyrone in 1792 and was a ‘Jack of all Trades’. He left his wife and two
children in Ireland and moved to Scotland about 1817. He was working as a ‘navvy’ on the Union Canal when he met
and began living with Helen MacDougal. He began working at different types of
jobs and they moved into a lodging-house in Edinburgh, which was owned by Hare, a fellow
Irishman who lived with Maggie Laird.
William Hare was born about 1800, probably
in Newry or Derry. He too immigrated to
Scotland and worked on the Union Canal. He moved to Edinburgh where he met a
man named Logue. Logue died in 1826 and Hare moved in with his widow
as his common-law-wife and they ran a lodging house. It was to
this house that Burke moved. It is probable that they already knew each other
from their Canal work.
It was around 1827 that the pair began their
campaign, which became known as the West Port Murders. By the time they had
finished they had killed 17 people and sold the bodies to Professor
Robert Knox, a leading Edinburgh anatomist at the Edinburgh
Medical College.
Hare later admitted that their first body was that
of a dead tenant, an army pensioner who owed Hare £4 rent. They stole the body
from its coffin and sold it to Professor Knox for £7. This was their first
meeting with Knox who must have let them know that there was a ready market for
such bodies.
As their murderous scheme progressed, with the help
of the women, they would ply their proposed victim, usually any sickly tenant,
with whisky and then suffocate them. The professor paid £15 for such
bodies ‘as they were fresh’. When they ran out of such tenants, the
women would lure proposed victims from the street, do likewise with the
whiskey, and then suffocate them.
One of their next victims was a well-known local
prostitute, Mary Patterson. They did the usual with her but problems
arose the next morning when students at the College recognised the victim. Some of them
were well acquainted with good old Mary.....
Vagrants and beggars were the most common victims,
as Burke and Hare believed, rightly in many of the cases, that such people
would not be missed or recognised. On another occasion Burke ‘saved’ a
woman from the police by claiming that he knew her. She too appeared at the
College a few hours later. An old woman and a deaf boy were the next two
victims but when there was a shortage, they even went as far as murdering one
of MacDougal’s relatives.
Two more prostitutes quickly followed but the
murders almost came to light when they murdered a well-known retarded young man
with a limp. He was called ‘Daft Jamie’ who was
eighteen at the time. When Professor Knox uncovered the body the next morning,
several students recognised the young man. Knox quickly removed the head and
feet and totally denied that it was Jamie. It appears that he then began to
dissect the face to totally prevent identification.
Their final victim was Marjory Docherty. Burke
lured her into the house by claiming that his mother’s family was called
Docherty. Another couple called Gray met her at the lodgings. The next morning,
Mrs. Gray became suspicious when Burke would not allow her to approach a bed
where she had left her stockings. When Burke went out, Mrs. Gray
discovered Marjory’s dead body under the bed. On their way to the police to
report the matter, they met MacDougal who offered them £10 per week to remain
quiet. They refused and continued to the police station.
MacDougal quickly informed Burke and Hare who
removed the body from the house before the police arrived. They were all
questioned but their stories of Docherty did not tally. They were arrested. It
was then that the police received an anonymous tip-off that led them to Knox’s
classroom where they found her body. The Gray’s identified it. Hare and Burke’s
wives were then arrested.
Although they had murdered seventeen people over
the previous eighteen months the prosecuting authorities did not consider that
there was sufficient evidence to obtain a conviction. They made an offer to
William Hare of immunity if he testified against Burke. That evidence led to
Burke being convicted and sentenced to death by hanging. Professor Knox never
faced prosecution, as there was no evidence that he had known the origin of the
corpses.
Helen MacDougal was almost lynched when she
returned to the lodging house. She is supposed to have immigrated to Australia.
Margaret Hare is supposed to have returned to Ireland when she too was almost
lynched. William Burke was hanged in Edinburgh on 28th January
1829.
William Hare was released in February 1829 and his
following years are unknown. There was a story about him being a blind beggar
in London having been thrown into a lime pit in Scotland but this was never
confirmed.
A couple of strange facts regarding Burke after his
execution are that his body was passed to the Royal College of Surgeons in
Edinburgh for research. His skeleton remains there to this day.
His ‘death mask’ is also retained at the College. For some unknown
reason there is also a book, the cover of which is alleged to have been made
from his skin. A similar business card case made from his skin is also present.
Perhaps Professor Knox or one of his students was
having the last laugh on Burke……
For years
afterwards, and who knows, probably still today, Scottish children sing the
following rhyme when playing hopscotch or skipping:
‘Burke the Butcher,
Hare the Thief,
Knox the boy who
Buys the Beef’.
------Mike------
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