In 1832, a new law was passed following growing concern over grave robbing and the murder of people for the sale of their bodies.
For years, medical schools had needed human bodies to teach anatomy and train doctors and surgeons. But the number of bodies that could legally be obtained had not been enough to meet demand.
That shortage created a dark trade.
Men known as resurrection-men, or body snatchers, dug up recently buried bodies and sold them to anatomy schools.
Fear of the resurrection-men became so serious that relatives and friends sometimes kept watch over newly buried bodies.
In some places, watch houses, iron coffins and other protective measures were used to prevent bodies from being stolen.
Ordinary people feared that once they had gone home, someone might dig up their dead relative and sell the body.
The problem had become serious enough for Parliament to investigate.
In 1828, a Select Committee examined the difficulties surrounding the teaching of anatomy and the supply of bodies.
Then, in 1831, a case in London exposed something even more disturbing.
John Bishop and Thomas Williams were body snatchers involved in supplying bodies for dissection.
In November 1831, together with another man, James May, they attempted to sell the body of a young boy.
The body was offered for sale at King's College, where Richard Partridge, the demonstrator of anatomy, was consulted about buying it.
Bishop and May negotiated a price of nine guineas.
But the body appeared unusually fresh and suspicions were raised about how it had been obtained.
An investigation followed and Bishop, Williams and May were arrested and put on trial at the Old Bailey. All three were found guilty of murdering the boy and sentenced to death.
However, May was later spared from execution and sentenced instead to transportation for life, which meant being sent overseas as a convict, usually to Australia. Bishop and Williams were executed.
The case became notorious.
Before his execution, Bishop confessed that he and Williams had deliberately killed the boy in a well in his garden, at No. 3 Nova Scotia Gardens in Bethnal Green, London, so that they could sell his body.
He also confessed to two other murders carried out for the same purpose.
The practice became known as “Burking”, after the murders committed by Burke and Hare in Edinburgh only a few years earlier.
Bishop admitted that he had worked as a body snatcher for around twelve years and estimated that he had sold between five hundred and one thousand corpses, although he claimed that apart from the three murders he confessed to, all the other bodies had been taken after death.
The case revealed the frightening consequences of the demand for human bodies.
The murders caused widespread alarm and added to calls for the law surrounding anatomy to be changed.
During debates in Parliament, MPs repeatedly discussed both the body snatchers and the crime commonly known as Burking.
On the 1st of August 1832, Parliament acted.
The Anatomy Bill received Royal Assent and became law.
The Anatomy Act introduced a regulated system for obtaining bodies for examination. Those practising anatomy were to be licensed, inspectors could oversee anatomy schools, and records had to be kept of bodies used for examination.
The Act itself made it clear why Parliament acted. It states that the legal supply of bodies had been insufficient and acknowledges that murders had been committed for the purpose of selling the victims' bodies.
After years of grave robbing, public anxiety and murder, the way human bodies were supplied for the study of anatomy was now being brought under much stricter control.
Royal College of Surgeons of England — Library & Archives, historical records concerning anatomical teaching, dissection and resurrectionists, including evidence given to the House of Commons Select Committee on Anatomy by its President, Sir Astley Paston Cooper, 1828, and material relating to the 1831 Bishop and Williams case.
The National Archives — The Anatomy Act 1832, catalogue reference HO 45/6521.
The National Archives — Body Snatchers, historical records relating to resurrectionists, the London Burkers and the Anatomy Act.
UK Parliament — Body Snatching and the Anatomy Acts, parliamentary historical records.
Wellcome Collection — The Anatomy Act, 1832, original historical publication, supplied by the University of Leeds Library.
An Act for regulating Schools of Anatomy, 2 & 3 Will. IV, c. 75 (1832).
House of Commons — Report from the Select Committee on Anatomy, ordered to be printed 22 July 1828, Parliamentary Paper No. 568.
House of Commons — Anatomical Science — Subjects for Dissection, parliamentary debate, 22 April 1828, Hansard, vol. 18.
The National Archives — Confessions of resurrectionists James May and John Bishop, 1831, catalogue reference HO 17/46/122.
Wellcome Collection — A Full, Complete, and Correct Account of the Horrid Murder of the Poor Italian Boy Carlo Ferriar, Dean and Munday, London, 1831; Medical Heritage Library, original held by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
The Trial, Sentence and Confessions of Bishop, Williams, and May, Old Bailey, 2 December 1831 — contemporary published trial account, including witness testimony and the confessions of Bishop and Williams.
King's College London — historical records relating to Richard Partridge, Demonstrator of Anatomy at King's College, and the 1831 London Burkers case.
The National Archives — Newgate Prison Calendar, December 1831, catalogue reference HO 77/39/32, recording John Bishop, Thomas Williams and James May as “All Guilty”; Bishop and Williams executed, James May respited and subsequently transported for life.
The History of the London Burkers — T. Kelly, London, 1832; contemporary account of Bishop, Williams and May, their Old Bailey trial, convictions and confessions. Wellcome Collection.
The National Archives — Criminal transportation, historical records and guidance concerning the transportation of British convicts overseas, including transportation to the Australian colonies.
Report from the Select Committee on Anatomy, House of Commons, 1828. Source: Wellcome Collection. Public Domain.
Luther Holden, A Manual of the Dissection of the Human Body. Source: Wellcome Collection. Public Domain.
The Anatomy Act 1832 (2 & 3 Will. 4, c. 75), An Act for Regulating Schools of Anatomy, 1 August 1832. Source: Wellcome Collection. Public Domain.
