May had been brought up as a butcher, but this trade he gave up, and became possessed of a horse and cart with which he was supposed to ply for hire. The real business of the vehicle, however, seems to have been to convey bodies from place to place for the Resurrectionists. Shields, the porter to the gang, had been watchman and grave-digger at the Roman Catholic Chapel in Moorfields, so that he was most useful to the other Resurrectionists in giving information, and in granting facilities for the removal of bodies. No evidence was offered against him in connection with the murder of the Italian boy. Soon after the trial he attempted to get work as a porter in Covent Garden Market, but on his being recognized by those working there, a shout of “Burker!” was raised, and Shields narrowly escaped with his life, and took refuge in the Police Office.
JOHN HEAD, alias THOMAS WILLIAMS. JOHN BISHOP.
Executed December 5, 1831. From Drawings by W. H. Clift, made directly after the execution.
This one incident as regards Shields gives an idea of the public feeling towards the resurrection-men, and that feeling was quite as bitter towards the anatomists. It was therefore absolutely necessary that some determined steps should be taken as regards legislation.
In December, 1831, Mr. Warburton again introduced a Bill into the House of Commons; it passed safely through both Houses, and became law on August 1st, 1832. By this new Act the Secretary of State for the Home Department in Great Britain, and the Chief Secretary in Ireland, were empowered to grant licences for anatomical purposes to any person lawfully qualified to practise medicine, to any professor or teacher of anatomy, and to students attending any school of medicine, on an application signed by two justices of the peace, who could certify that the applicant intended to carry on the practice of anatomy. It was enacted that executors, or other persons having lawful possession of a body (provided they were not undertakers, or persons to whom the body had been handed over for purposes of interment), might give it up for dissection unless the deceased had expressed a wish during his life that his body should not be so used, or unless a known relative objected to the body being given up. If a person had expressed a wish to be dissected, this wish was to be carried out unless the relatives raised any objection. No body might be moved for anatomical purposes until forty-eight hours after death, nor until the expiration of a twenty-four hours’ notice to the Inspector of Anatomy; a proper death certificate had also to be signed by the medical attendant before the body could be moved. Provision was made for the decent removal of all bodies, and for their burial in consecrated ground, or in some public burial-ground in use for persons of that religious persuasion to which the person, whose body was so removed, belonged. A certificate of the interment was to be sent to the Inspector within six weeks after the day on which the body was received. No licensed person was to be liable to any prosecution, penalty, forfeiture, or punishment for having a body in his possession for anatomical purposes according to the provisions of the Act.
Perhaps the most important clause was that which did away with the dissection of the bodies of murderers. This was done by Section XVI., which ran as follows:
“And whereas an Act was passed in the Ninth Year of the Reign of His late Majesty, for consolidating and amending the Statutes in England relative to Offences against the Person, by which latter Act it is enacted, that the Body of every Person convicted of Murder shall, after Execution, either be dissected or hung in Chains, as to the Court which tried the Offender shall deem meet; and that the Sentence to be pronounced by the Court shall express that the Body of the Offender shall be dissected or hung in Chains, whichever of the Two the Court shall order. Be it enacted, That so much of the said last-recited Act as authorizes the Court, if it shall see fit, to direct that the Body of a Person convicted of Murder shall after Execution, be dissected, be and the same is hereby repealed: and that in every case of Conviction of any Prisoner for Murder, the Court before which such Prisoner shall have been tried shall direct such Prisoner either to be hung in Chains or buried within the Precincts of the Prison in which such Prisoner shall have been confined after conviction, as to such Court shall deem meet; and that the sentence to be pronounced by the Court shall express that the body of such Prisoner shall be hung in Chains, or buried within the Precincts of the Prison, whichever of the two the Court shall order.”
Three Inspectors were appointed to carry out the provisions of the Act. The first Inspectors were Dr. J. C. Somerville, for England; Dr. Craigie, of Edinburgh, for Scotland; and Sir James Murray, of Dublin, for Ireland. There was no provision for punishing persons found violating graves; it had been already decided that this was an offence at common law; and presumably the framers of the Act had, at last, sufficient faith in their measure to believe that it would put an end to the proceedings of the resurrection-men. If that were so, they were not disappointed. After the passing of the Act the resurrection-man, as such, drops out of history; his occupation was gone, and one of the most nefarious trades that the world has ever seen came completely to an end. Public feeling against these men did not all at once subside; this strongly militated against their getting employment, and some of them moved to other quarters, where they lived under assumed names.
In looking back it is impossible not to regret that Parliament was so slow to believe that legislation in the direction of the Anatomy Act would do away with the evils of the resurrection-men. This fact was urged upon them by the teachers; but popular feeling was so dead against the anatomists, who were thought to be responsible for even the worst crimes of the resurrection-men, that Parliament seemed to fear to do anything which favoured the teachers, although the great disadvantages under which they suffered were thoroughly well known. Perhaps the best tribute to the success of the Act, is the very small alterations which have been made in it between 1832 and the present day.
A glance at the regulations in force in foreign countries for the supply of bodies, at the time of the passing of the Anatomy Act, shows that when a fair provision was made by law for the supply of bodies, the resurrection-men were unknown. The great advantages of the student on the Continent, as compared with his brethren in England, were thus pointed out to the Committee by Mr. [afterwards Sir] William Lawrence: “I see many medical persons from France, Germany, and Italy, and have found, from my intercourse with them, that anatomy is much more successfully cultivated in those countries than in England; at the same time I know, from their numerous valuable publications on anatomy, that they are far before us in this science; we have no original standard works at all worthy of the present state of knowledge.” It was also shown that this fact was chiefly the result of the greater opportunities for getting subjects abroad, and that teachers found that those English students who had been to foreign schools were the best informed.