Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Resurrectionists in the United Kingdom

Resurrectionists in the United Kingdom

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the TFAR nomination of the article below. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests). Please do not modify this page unless you are renominating the article at TFAR. For renominations, please add   to the top of the discussion and   at the bottom, then complete a new TFAR nom underneath.

The result was: scheduled for Today's featured article/October 31, 2014 by BencherliteTalk 10:29, 15 October 2014 (UTC)



Resurrectionists were commonly employed by anatomists in the United Kingdom during the 18th and 19th centuries to disinter the bodies of the recently deceased for anatomical research. Between 1506 and 1752 only a very few cadavers were available each year. The supply was increased when, in an attempt to intensify the deterrent effect of the death penalty, Parliament created the Murder Act 1752. The new law allowed judges to substitute the public display of the dead or dying bodies of executed criminals with dissection—a fate generally viewed with horror—and significantly increased the number of bodies anatomists could legally access. But it proved insufficient to meet the needs of the hospitals and teaching centres that opened during the 18th century. Corpses and their component parts became a commodity, but although the practice of disinterment was hated by the general public, bodies were not legally anyone's property. The resurrectionists therefore operated in a legal grey area.
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 * Main editors: User:Parrot of Doom
 * Promoted: 2013
 * Reasons for nomination: Date appropriate for Halloween. Is a historical article than the more common scary media that is typically run. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 00:32, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Support as nominator. Harizotoh9 (talk) 00:32, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Support, most educational and encyclopedic. Also, history of SCIENCE!!! &mdash; Cirt (talk) 14:13, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment FYI, the blurb has less than 1000 characters, quite under the 1200 character/space limit that they asked for. Prhartcom (talk) 13:41, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Support. Though I'm personally an atheist, I actually find science rather boring, especially biology - but this is a fun little festive piece for Halloween so I think it'll work out quite nicely. I'm sp00ked already. Tezero (talk) 06:43, 14 October 2014 (UTC)