By one o’clock on the morning of Monday, the 5th December, a great crowd had assembled in front of the scaffold at Newgate, and by daybreak as many as 30,000 persons were present to witness the last act of the law. Bishop’s appearance on the scaffold gave rise to a scene similar to that at the execution of Burke at Edinburgh. The people hooted and yelled in a terrible manner while the executioner put the rope round the murderer’s neck, and fixed it to a chain depending from the beam; and the demonstration was renewed with vigour when Williams was brought out. When the drop fell Bishop died instantaneously, but Williams struggled in the death agonies for several minutes. The crowd then broke through the barriers, and a scene that baffles description ensued. Forgeting itself in the excitement of the moment, the mob rushed towards the scaffold, and in the struggle with the police large numbers were injured. Many were trampled under foot. By half-past seven o’clock that morning between twenty and thirty persons were carried to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, all seriously maimed. “Thus died,” says a broadside published at the time, “the dreadful Burkers of 1831.” The author of the production called “The Trial, Sentence, Full Confession and Execution of Bishop and Williams, the Burkers,” furnishes a very pertinent comment on the whole transaction. “The month of November, 1831,” he remarks, “will be recorded in the annals of crime and cruelties as particularly pre-eminent, for it will prove to posterity that other wretches could be found base enough to follow the horrid example of Burke and his accomplice Hare, to entice the unprotected and friendless to the den of Death for sordid gain.” In accordance with the terms of sentence, the bodies of the executed criminals were “delivered over for dissection and anatomization.”
While this terrible example of the dangers to the community under the existing state of the law as to the study of anatomy was still fresh on the minds of the people, Mr. Warburton again introduced his bill, slightly altered in respect of details, into the House of Commons. On the 15th of December, 1831, he obtained leave to introduce the bill, and it was then read a first time. He moved the second reading on the 17th of January, 1832, but when the question was put that the bill be read a second time it was found there were not forty members present, and the House had to adjourn. However, on the 29th of the same month he was more successful, and gained the second reading. After it had passed through several stages in committee, Mr. Warburton, on the 11th of April, moved that it be re-committed, and stated that he had been waited upon by deputations from the College of Surgeons in Dublin, and another medical body, who desired that the provisions of the measure should be extended to Ireland, which he had not originally intended should be included within its scope. In committee it was agreed to extend the bill to Ireland. On the 18th of April, when it was again in committee, an amendment to the effect that the disposal of the bodies of executed murderers for dissection should be left to the discretion of the judges was negatived. The bill passed the House of Commons on the 11th of May, and shortly afterwards received the approval of the Upper House.
CHAPTER XLII.
The Passing of the Anatomy Act—Its Terms and Provisions.
Such were the circumstances that led up to the passing of what was familiarly known as the Anatomy Act. In view of the long course of restriction to which it put an end, and of the fact that this measure is still operative as regards the matter of which it treats, it is proper that it should be reproduced here. It received the Royal assent on the 1st of August, 1832, and is technically known as 3 and 4 Geo. IV., c. 75, the short title being “An Act for regulating Schools of Anatomy.” The following are its terms and provisions:—
“Whereas a knowledge of the causes and nature of sundry diseases which affect the body, and the best methods of treating and curing such diseases, and of healing and repairing divers wounds and injuries to which the human frame is liable, cannot be acquired without the aid of anatomical examination: And whereas the legal supply of human bodies for such anatomical examination is insufficient fully to provide the means of such knowledge: And whereas in order further to supply human bodies for such purposes, divers great and grievous crimes have been committed, and lately murder, for the single object of selling for such purposes the bodies of the persons so murdered: And whereas, therefore, it is highly expedient to give protection, under certain regulations, to the study and practice of anatomy, and to prevent, as far as may be, such great and grievous crimes and murder as aforesaid: Be it therefore enacted by the King’s most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, that it shall be lawful for his Majesty’s principal secretary of state for the time being for the home department in that part of the United Kingdom called Great Britain, and for the chief secretary for Ireland in that part of the United Kingdom called Ireland, immediately on the passing of this Act, or so soon thereafter as may be required, to grant a license to practise anatomy to any fellow or member of any college of physicians or surgeons, or to any graduate or licentiate in medicine, or to any person lawfully qualified to practise medicine in any part of the United Kingdom, or to any professor or teacher of anatomy, medicine, or surgery, or to any student attending any school of anatomy, on application from such party for such purpose, countersigned by two of his Majesty’s justices of the peace acting for the county, city, borough, or place wherein such party so applying is about to carry on the practice of anatomy.
“2. And be it enacted, that it shall be lawful for his Majesty’s said principal secretary of state or chief secretary, as the case may be, immediately on the passing of this Act, or as soon thereafter as may be necessary, to appoint respectively not fewer than three persons to be inspectors of places where anatomy is carried on, and at any time after such first appointment to appoint, if they shall see fit, one or more other person or persons to be an inspector or inspectors as aforesaid; and every such inspector shall continue in office for one year, or until he be removed by the said secretary of state or chief secretary, as the case may be, or until some other person shall be appointed in his place; and as often as any inspector appointed as aforesaid shall die, or shall be removed from his said office, or shall refuse or become unable to act, it shall be lawful for the said secretary of state or chief secretary, as the case may be, to appoint another person to be inspector in his room.
“3. And be it enacted, that it shall be lawful for the said secretary of state or chief secretary, as the case may be, to direct what district of town or country, or of both, and what places where anatomy is carried on, situate within such district, every such inspector shall be appointed to superintend, and in what manner every such inspector shall transact the duties of his office.