In 1505, The Incorporation of Surgeons and Barbers of Edinburg was founded to be at the forefront of medical exploration and discovery.
Edinburgh became one of the first countries in Europe to legally allow dissection of human remains for medical research.
However as the population at the time were extremely religious, they believed that unless your body was intact on the final day of judgement, you would not be resurrected by God and go to paradise.
A law was eventually passed, granting the school of Surgeons the body of one executed criminal per year for dissection and scientific research, David Myers was the first criminal who’s body was donated after his execution.
With this “limited” supply of bodies, it led to a “gap in the market” giving an opportunity for some enterprising gentlemen to earn up to up to 10 pounds per body, for perspective, that’s 6 months of wages for one night’s work.
Grave robbing became rampant in Edinburgh. These “Resurrection men” would wait for a funeral to take place, returning under the cover of darkness and to avoid unnecessary noise, using wooden shovels and spades would dig up these freshly buried corpses.
They would strip the body of clothes and jewellery before placing them into hessian bags and sacks and delivering them to the Medical School.
The professors, desperate for cadavers to study were said to “ask no questions”.
This brings us to the two most infamous body snatchers and serial killers in Edinburghs history. William Burke and William Hare. The two Irish men I'm sure became a favourite amoung the Professors at the Medical College for one simple reason, they always seemed to provide the freshest cadavers.
They are said to have set up a hostel, they would approach the homeless and most vulnerable people in the city, with the promise of a fresh meal and warm bed, Burke and Hare would bring their victim back to the hostel, get them drunk before murdering these poor souls.
In order to not damage the body, they developed a method to suffocate their victims with a technique that became known as “Burking”
Hare would hold the the poor souls down while Burke would hold shut the nose and mouth until their victims passed away.
They murdered sixteen people and sold their victims corpses to Robert Knox for dissection and study at his anatomy lectures. Eventually Burke and Hare were exposed for their crimes.
The trial began on December 24th 1828. William Hare escape conviction as he took to the stand and told the court that it was William Burke who mastermind, planned and committed the murders. After the trial Hare left Edinburgh and prehaps Scotland, never to be heard from or seen again, it is unknown what became of him.
William Burke was sentence to death by hanging for the murders. Lord Justice-Clerk, David Boyle also added the following conditions following the execution of Burke.
"Your body should be publicly dissected and anatomized. And I trust, that if it is ever customary to preserve skeletons, yours will be preserved, in order that posterity may keep in remembrance your atrocious crimes."
Burke was hanged in front of 25,000 people on January 28th 1829.
For two days people in groups of 50 passed through the College gates to witness the dissection of the murderer Burke.
His tanned skin was make into the cover of a book. His Skeleton was also preserved for display, during the dissection, using his quill pen, Alexander Monro dipped the tip into Burke’s blood and wrote.
“This is written with the blood of Wm Burke, who was hanged at Edinburgh. This blood was taken from his head"
Following the trial and execution of Burke and once the true evil of these murders became known, it caused public outrage and anger in the population of Edinburgh and so the execution of William Burke marked the beginning of the end for the era of body snatchers in Scotland.
Visit the Surgens Hall Museum in Edinburgh to view Burkes mortal remains as seen in the pictures attached.