Harriet Wheelock / Thursday 28 October 2010 Burke and Hare This week sees the launch of John Landis' new film Burke and Hare, telling the story of two notorious nineteenth century murderers. The title rolls are taken by Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis, with a supporting cast of British Comedy stars. William Burke and William Hare were poor Irish immigrants to Edinburgh in the early nineteenth century, Hare's wife Margaret ran a lodging house in Edinburgh and it was there that Burke and Hare meet. In the decades before the passing of the Anatomy Act in 1832 there was an increasing shortage of bodies for the flourishing study of anatomy in British Medical Schools. Legally the medical schools could only dissect the bodies of executed criminals, but the numbers of such cadavers was falling while demand rose, this led to the practice of grave robbing, where 'resurrectionists' would secretly remove corpses from grave yards and sell them to medical schools. In 1827 Burke and Hare were to stumble on this lucrative trade when one of Margaret Hare's lodgers died, still owing £4 in rent. Burke and Hare took the body to Edinburgh University where they sold it to the anatomist Robert Knox for £7 10shillings. Introduced to this lucrative trade Burke and Hare went on to murder 16 victims, mainly sickly tenants or the poor from the streets of Edinburgh. They were eventually caught in 1828 when another lodger found the body of one of the victims and reported Burke and Hare to the police. Short of evidence Hare turned King's evidence for immunity from prosecution and Burke was convicted. Burke was publically hanged in Edinburgh in front of a crowd of 25,000 and his body was then publically dissected in the Edinburgh Medical School, where he had sent his victims. Burke's skeleton is still part of the Edinburgh University Anatomy Museum. Although the College Archive holds no material directly relating to Burke and Hare, there are a number of books in the Dun's Library relating to them. In addition the archive holds some items which show that the shortage of bodies for dissection and grave robbing was also a problem in Dublin. Under the 1692 Charter the College was allowed to take annually for dissection the bodies of six criminals executed in Dublin city and country, providing that their remains were decently buried at the expense of the President and Fellows. In February 1693 the College made arrangements for the dissection of a recently executed criminal by one of the Fellows, Charles Gwither. It is alleged that after the dissection the body was decently buried, although possibly not as shortly afterwards Dr Gwither presented the skeleton of a man to the Library of Trinity College. Dissections did not always go to plan and in 1699 the body of an executed criminal was 'rescued' from the College by friends.1 For the friends of the deceased dissection of the body was a major issue as it was believed that if a body was dissected then that person could not be resurrected on Judgement Day. One of the earliest account books of the College, from the 1670s, gives evidence of the dissections of criminals' corpses were taking place, and the problem of friends and family trying to save corpses from dissection. The page of the account book for 1676 shows various expenses relating to a dissection including costs for a dissection table and cleaning instruments (a and b), the warrant for the body (c ) and the coffin (d). Interestingly the College was obliged to employ soldiers to guard the body awaiting dissection and provide them with drink (e,f and g). In 1710 the School of Physic at Trinity College was founded and an Anatomy House and Laboratory built and the College stopped exercising its rights to claim the bodies of executed criminals. The issue of a shortage of corpses for anatomy continued as an account by Sir Dominic Corrigan. Corrigan's anonymous account of his medical education in Dublin in the 1820s includes vivid accounts of grave robbing, which was then a necessity for medical students. The full text of the article is available here and a quote from it in this earlier post. 1. Widdess, J D H, A History of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland 1654-1963 (1963), pp.35, 38-9. Images; * Burke and Hare from John Landis' film * Contemporary image of Burke and Hare. * Print of the execution of William Burke. * Page from College Account Book dated 1676, RCPI Archive