Because corpses were not viewed as property and could neither be owned nor stolen, these body snatchers were kind of ignored and swept under the carpet by law enforcers. Parliament knew anatomy students needed them and it was only a little bit illegal. The crime was really only the destruction of the grave and coffin rather than the theft of the body itself.
The biggest threat to the safety of the body snatchers was the family of the deceased, they risked a good old-fashioned beating if caught. In one case in Dublin a group of body snatchers and a large group of mourners ended up fighting at close quarters with guns and pick axes.
Things carried on as they were for decades but eventually took a turn for the much, much worse when some people of ill repute decided to use a more direct route to obtain bodies.
People like Burke and Hare, pictured above, and the copy cat London Burkers group would simply murder people and sell them on. So they cut out the middle man essentially.
Killing for profit was a step too far for the government and it was these heinous crimes that forced the law makers into action; the Anatomy Act of 1832 was born. This new law legalised the dissection of people who did not object in writing i.e. illiterate, poor people. So the law didn’t make body snatching illegal, it just took the need away and it slowly died out, by 1844 it was all over.
So next time you’re grumbling about your place of employment, spare a thought for the guys scrambling through pitch black tunnels dragging semi-putrid corpses behind them. Although, to be quite honest, some days I would still prefer corpse procurement to sitting at my desk looking at a spreadsheet.
☛ More Bodies: Immaculate 500 Year Old Corpses Found On Volcano Summit
