Page 20 - All About History - Issue 11-14

Science

DARK CLOTHES STURDY SHOVEL

STAYING UNDETECTED WAS VITAL A RELIABLE TOOL FOR DIRTY WORK
Like any practice that required moving If a six-month jail sentence was an
as quietly and comfortably as possible, occupational hazard for the body snatcher, then
lightweight and well-fitting clothes were digging six feet of earth out of a grave to reach
essential, with dark clothes preferable. Body the coffin was their daily grind. A good shovel
snatchers traditionally plied their creepy would make lighter work of it but the clever
trade under cover of darkness and digging body snatcher didn’t necessarily even have to
up several bodies in a single evening could break a sweat to procure a corpse. Grease the
take hours. Blending into the night could right palms at the poorhouse and not only
help them stay undetected – what they could they find out exactly who had died plus
were doing may have helped advance the wheres and whens of their grave, but the
medical science but was still illegal. recently deceased might even get lost on the
way to their final resting place…
PICKAXE
FOR PARTICULARLY TOUGH ENCOUNTERS
Alongside the shovel, the pickaxe naturally
complemented the hard graft of the body snatcher’s
work. It was a way of getting through hard-packed soil,
levering rocks and ultimately, a tool for prying the lid
off a coffin. As society became wise to the way of the
resurrectionists, concrete slabs were lain on coffins and
mortsafes – iron cages – around them, to protect the
contents from pick and shovel.
PICKLING JARS
FOR THE BITS AND PIECES THE
The grim details of a body snatcher’s
inventory would make many Anatomy
19th-century folk turn a shade of
green and the profession had a poor
reputation – not surprising when some of
would actually kill just to receive coin
from those seeking to learn more about
human anatomy and biology. When
the whole body couldn’t be moved or
some of it was too far gone, body parts
would be pickled in jars and sold at a A BODY
later time.
SNATCHER

THIEF OF CORPSES FOR

LONG ROPE THE MEDICAL PROFESSION

ENOUGH TO HANG YOURSELF WITH
As the techniques for gravedigging became 19TH CENTURY, UK
more sophisticated, the body snatcher began to
require more tools in his arsenal. One method
reduced the amount of digging required and
involved cutting a section of turf out from the
head of the grave, then digging down to the
coffin and cutting the top off. The rope was CLOTH SACK
then tied around the corpse’s neck and it was
unceremoniously dragged out of the hole. TO HOLD IT ALL TOGETHER
The condition the body snatcher would find the
corpses in varied. If they had pulled the right
strings then it had been freshly interred that
very day or even better, come straight from the
deadhouse. Otherwise, if decay had set into
© Ian Jackson/The Art Agency
the body, it would be placed in a bag, piece
by gruesome piece. For the anatomists and
biologists, a ripe corpse was workable but one
too decayed was worthless.

20