These trials and verdicts made it still more difficult than before to get subjects for dissection, as even men of the Resurrectionist class hesitated to run the risk of getting the punishment, which now the superior Courts had upheld. Those who did run this risk very naturally expected a price proportionate to the danger, and so the cost of subjects was still more increased.

But to surgeons, and to teachers of anatomy, by far the most important trial of all was that of John Davies and others, of Warrington, for obtaining the body of Jane Fairclough, which had been taken from the chapel-yard belonging to the Baptists, at High Cliff, Appleton, Cheshire, in October, 1827. This case was tried at Lancaster Assizes, March 14th, 1828. The defendants were John Davies (a medical student at the Warrington Dispensary), Edward Hall (a surgeon and apothecary in practice at Warrington), William Blundell (an apprentice to a stationer in the same town), and Richard Box. Thomas Ashton was also included in the indictment, but no evidence was offered against him. There were fourteen counts in the indictment, ten charging the defendants with conspiracy, and four charging them with unlawfully procuring and receiving the body of Jane Fairclough. It appears, from the report of the trial, that Davies called on Dr. Moss, one of the Physicians to the Dispensary, and obtained permission to use a building in his garden for the purpose of dissecting a subject which he had purchased. Mr. Hall, on behalf of Davies, paid four guineas to the men who brought the body to a cellar in Warrington, but he knew nothing more of the transaction; from the cellar the body was removed to Dr. Moss’ premises by Blundell and another man, and was received by Davies and a servant of Dr. Moss. Information of the exhumation seems to have quickly got about. The funeral was on a Friday; on the Monday following the grave was undisturbed, but on Tuesday the soil was spread about, and an examination of the grave showed that the corpse had been removed. The body was identified at Dr. Moss’ house, and was taken away before any dissection had been performed on it.

In charging the jury, Mr. Baron Hullock said that, as conspiracy was an offence of serious magnitude, they should be satisfied, before finding a verdict of guilty on the former part of the indictment, that the conduct of the defendants was the result of previous concert.... If any of the defendants were in possession of the body under circumstances which must have apprized them that it was improperly disinterred, the jury would find them guilty of the latter part of the charge. The only bodies legally liable to dissection in this country were those of persons executed for murder. However necessary it might be, for the purposes of humanity and science, that these things should be done, yet, as long as the law remained as it was at present, the disinterment of bodies for dissection was an offence liable to punishment. The jury found all the defendants not guilty of the charge of conspiracy, but they pronounced Davies and Blundell guilty of possession of the body, with knowledge of the illegal disinterment. The defendants were brought up for judgment in London in May, 1828. Mr. Justice Bayley, in passing sentence, said that “there were degrees of guilt, and in this case the defendants were not the most criminal parties.” He sentenced Davies to a fine of £20, and Blundell to a fine of £5.

It will be noted that in this trial there is no charge against anyone for violating the grave, or stealing the body. The fines were inflicted on Davies and Blundell for having the body in their possession, knowing it to have been disinterred. This decision, therefore, as before stated, was of the utmost importance to teachers of anatomy, as they were clearly liable to punishment for all the subjects supplied to them by the Resurrectionists. The teachers knew well the sources from which the bodies were obtained, and were only driven to get them in the way they did through there being no regular supply of subjects from a legitimate source. The feeling that legislation on this subject was absolutely necessary, was more keenly felt than ever, and the teachers did all they could to get a change in the laws. Many pamphlets were issued from the press, urging this duty upon Parliament; it was pointed out that if a supply of bodies could be regularly obtained in a legal way, the trade of the Resurrectionist would at once cease. There were many who doubted this, but subsequent events proved the statement to be strictly accurate.

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It was very strongly urged that the Act of Geo. II., which ordered the bodies of all murderers executed in London and Middlesex to be anatomized by the Surgeons’ Company, ought to be repealed. No doubt this provision much increased the dislike of the poor to any regulations by which the bodies of their friends might be given up for dissection after death. It was felt that dissection by the Surgeons was part of the sentence passed on a murderer, and therefore carried with it shame and disgrace. To make provision by law, therefore, for the dissection of the bodies of any other class of persons was, not unnaturally, distasteful, in that it partly put them in the same position as murderers.

The answer to the desire for the repeal of this obnoxious clause was that nothing must be done to weaken the law; it was stated that to withdraw the part of the sentence which related to dissection would rob the punishment of its prohibitive effect. It is somewhat difficult to understand the argument; surely if the risk of suffering the extreme penalty of the law would not keep a man from crime, the extra chance of being dissected after death could hardly be expected to do so. As Sir Henry Halford said, “I certainly think that while that law remains they [the public] will connect the crime of murder with the practice of dissection; an order to be dissected, and a permission to be dissected, seem to be too slight a distinction.”

Another objection to the dissection of murderers came from the teachers. They stated that when the body of a notorious criminal was lying at either of the Anatomical Schools, the proprietor was pestered by persons of a morbid turn of mind for permission to view the body. This difficulty was also felt by the College of Surgeons, and in consequence a placard was hung up outside the place where the dissections were made, giving notice that no person could be admitted, unless accompanied by a member of the Court of Assistants.

To make dissection less distasteful to the general public, and to show the advantages of anatomy, some endeavours were made to explain the structure of the human body to non-professional persons. In Ireland Sir Philip Crampton lectured with open doors, and gave demonstrations in anatomy to poor people. These persons, he tells us, became interested in the subject, and often brought him bodies for dissection. A newspaper cutting of 1829 shows that this was also tried in London. A surgeon called in the overseers and churchwardens of St. Clement Danes, and gave a demonstration on a body, explaining its construction, and the use of the internal organs. “By this means,” says the paragraph, “he so fully absorbed the self-interest of his audience as to extinguish the pre-conceived notions of horror and disgust attached to the idea of a spectacle of this description. The enlightened governors of the parish assented to the post mortem examination of the body of every unclaimed pauper, an enquiry into whose case might appear conducive to the interests of medical science.”