Talk:Resurrectionists in the United Kingdom

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Peer reviewers: Devours2.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 03:06, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Possible useful source
I am reading:, because there is some useful information on smallpox vaccination, which I am using for another article. But there is a little on grave robbery on pages 27 to 30. For example, I didn't know this: "In law, if resurrectionists stole nothing but the corpse, not clothing or the coffin, they could only be charged with trespassing." Which explains why the bodies were stripped and why the anatomists were not breaking the law.

There is also a morbid quotation from the contemporary press: "10 January 1784: On Tuesday the 23 of December last, Mr S., professor of anatomy, Great Queen-street, employed a man to procure him a dead body, that he might demonstrate the muscels [sic] the day following to his young pupils, amounting to upward of seventy. The man according to agreement brought the body in a sack the same evening to his dissecting room, but shocking to relate, on examining the body, he found it to be his own sister, that was buried at Kensington on the 14th, the sight of which threw Mr. S, into strong convulsions, and he now lies dangerously ill." (p. 28)

Lane goes on to describe how corpses from London were sent to Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol and Exeter. And bodies from Liverpool to Edinburgh and Glasgow. (p 28) Medical students could be particularly cavalier with bodies and body parts; the landlady of a certain George Crabbe found a dead child in his closet. (p 28)

Bodies were graded by the robbers "as large, small and 'foetus'", and an adult corpse could fetch £7 17s 6d. (p. 29)

One robber, Joseph Naples, "who worked with a team of eight men" kept a diary for 1811 to 1812, where he "noted receipts totalling £1,394 8s". (pp. 28 to 29)


 * Graham Colm (talk) 20:11, 30 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks Graham, some of that is already in the article. I'm waiting on delivery of The Italian Boy: Murder and Grave-robbery in 1830s London and I have something to check out at Manchester Library, too.  Right now I think the article has a bit too much about anatomy and the 1832 Act, but it's early days yet. Parrot of Doom 23:15, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

A handful of corpses
In the second sentence of the lead, I find the usage "a handful of corpses" funny ... perhaps unintentionally so? Would you consider a change to something which strains the metaphor a little less? :) Best wishes DBaK (talk) 08:29, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I couldn't find exact figures on how many corpses were available (the sources seem not to agree) so used this term. If an appropriate synonym can be found, I have no objection to changing it. Parrot of Doom 18:57, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks, and sorry about the slow reply. I've tried "small number" on the grounds that it's no less precise (or imprecise!) but has the advantage that it doesn't make me snort tea down my nose when reading it ... what do you think? (About the substitution, not the tea, I mean.) Cheers DBaK (talk) 10:18, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
 * "A small number" isn't very specific, the true figure was somewhere around 10 per annum, which I think "handful" covers aptly. Parrot of Doom 10:19, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Spare stuff - deleted from the article as it wasn't that relevant
Questions were raised about what effect dissection had on the soul, but the medical profession normally ridiculed such notions, ignoring the more unpleasant aspects of dissection and focussing on its medical benefits. However, others agreed with William Lawrence, who labelled anatomy "a dirty source of knowledge". In 1832 the Westminster Medical Society adopted a petition which resolved that the bodies of paupers replace those of murderers: "medical men should not be 'the finishers of the law'". The surgeon-anatomist G. J. Guthrie held a different view. Writing to the Home Secretary in 1829, he said "If such a measure be adopted, it will be a monstrous act of injustice to the poor of this country."

TFA for Halloween 2014:
Would anyone have any opposition to this running on Oct. 31st of this year? If not, I am thinking of nominating this to run on that day. Would there be a better date to run this? --Harizotoh9 (talk) 21:47, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't particularly mind, so long as if enough vandalism occurs, someone acts quickly to stop it. My experience of TFA is that it can be an extremely frustrating experience. Parrot of Doom 20:17, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Nominated: Today's featured article/requests/Resurrectionists in the United Kingdom --Harizotoh9 (talk) 05:44, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

A Tale of Two Cities
When I skimmed this article, I was surprised to see that it made no mention of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, which features a resurrectionist named Jerry Cruncher. Could we add a link to his article in the "See also" section? I feel that it's a fairly important omission, considering that A Tale of Two Cities is one of the most famous books of all time, having sold over 200 million copies. AmericanLemming (talk) 01:32, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Igor
Surprised there's no mention of him; he's commonly portrayed as one. FiredanceThroughTheNight (talk) 04:26, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
 * To both this and the section immediately above: I don't think it adds much to the article to mention every work of fiction that includes a resurrectionist or mentions the practice. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:58, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Issue with the lead section
Congrats on getting onto the main page on Halloween. However, between the tiny picture size there and the rather ambiguous first paragraph of the lead section, I couldn't actually tell that resurrectionists were people, which confused me for a bit - and this from a native English speaker. Would inserting the following bolded word (or a synonym) in the first sentence work: "Resurrectionists were people commonly employed by anatomists..."? It does sound rather awkward reading it to me, but seems to make the meaning clearer. ansh666 21:44, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Might I ask what you thought a resurrectionist was, before you realised it was a person? Parrot of Doom 21:54, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Perhaps a wikilink from people to human being might make it even clearer? Eric   Corbett  22:27, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I have tried employing cats, but they never turn up. Graham Beards (talk) 00:11, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Ha! I honestly have no idea - maybe some kind of tool or something. Part of it is the word "employed", as a software-engineer-type it didn't occur to me that that meant actually paying someone to do a job or whatever, so it took me a couple readings to figure out it was actually talking about humans. I do find it as funny as you all, to be honest! ansh666 03:05, 1 November 2014 (UTC) (P.S. at least I did realize it eventually...)

Article Evaluation
This article relates to our course because the book for this course, Stiff by Mary Roach contains a chapter on the crimes of anatomy. The article consists of similar information that is also in the book. The history of Resurrectionists and body snatching has accurate information that is also portrayed in the chapter. Additionally, the consequences of body snatching by gangs and other individuals who were paid by anatomists is also included in both this article and Stiff. This article does a good job of providing readers with addiquit information on this subject. I was intrigued with what I have read in Stiff and this article does a good job looking more in depth on the matter such as the Anatomy Act of 1832. I also thought the article did a good job providing information on other methods that were used to gain access to deceased bodies for the use of science. Overall, I thought this article is well written with reliable and accurate information. --Devours2 (talk) 03:47, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Evaluating an Article
Hey! I just wanted to say that I found this Wiki article very knowledgeable and extremely intriguing. I did however have a few suggestions, that hopefully can help improve the page even if it is in a slight way. My first suggestions it that you could possibly incorporate recent articles about the topic, because it seemed as thought the majority of resources used are from 2011 and earlier. My second suggestion is to possibly incorporate Resurrectionists in pop culture both during the time in which they were prevalent and also today. Like other users have mentioned the like of Igor and Jerry Cruncher but what about Indiana Jones, Ed Gein, the Bhakkar Cannibals and the recent issues with grave robbery of celebrities? Lastly, I thought that it was important to suggest looking into the New York Academy of Medicine (nyam.org/library/collections-and-resources/digital-collections-exhibits/digital-resurrectionists/) because they actually have a collection on the Burke and Hare case that I found very interesting-at the very least it can serve as an additional link for those interested in then case! JKNobles (talk) 15:50, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Vitriol & Lime
An unusual deterrent against dissection is described in John Kelso Hunter's "Retrospect of an Artist's Life" on page 79 of the 1912 edition. John Witherspoon was condemned to death as a thief and after being hung he was buried in a shallow grave which made his friends suspect that the resurrectionists were being encouraged. His friends opened the coffin and applied 'Vitriol and lime' to the body from head to toe so that the body would be of no use. Rosser Gruffydd 20:07, 30 July 2018 (UTC)