In July, 1797, it was reported to the Court that Mr. Chandler, one of their members, “had in the most polite and ready manner offered his stable for the reception of the bodies of the two murderers who were executed last month.” The thanks of the Court were voted to Mr. Chandler “for his polite attention to the Company upon that occasion.”
After the Bill had been lost in the Lords, the following resolution was passed by the Court in November, 1797: “Resolved that in order to evince the sincerity of the Court to remove all reasonable objections to the present situation in Lincoln’s Inn Fields the Clerk be directed, with proper assistance, to look for a temporary dissecting-room at a place in or near the Old Bailey until a permanent one near the place of execution can be established.”
In June, 1800, a warehouse was taken in Castle Street, Cow Cross, West Smithfield, for eighteen months, as, owing to the labours of taking over the Hunterian Collection, there had been no time for obtaining a permanent place. A house in Duke Street, West Smithfield, was afterwards leased for the purpose, and arrangements were made for Pass, the Beadle, to reside there. This landed the College in a small expense, as in 1832 the Beadle was elected Constable of the Ward of Farringdon, and the Council had to pay a fine of £10 in place of his serving the office. At the expiration of the lease of the Duke Street house, so great an increase of rent was demanded that the College gave up the premises, and took a newly-built house in Hosier Lane, on a lease for twenty-one years. Here the dissections were carried on until the passing of the Anatomy Act, when the College had no longer to share with the hangman the duty of carrying out the sentence on murderers who were condemned to be hanged and anatomized.
The bodies were not really dissected by the College Authorities; a sufficient incision was made to satisfy the requirements of the Act, and the body was then handed over to one of the Teachers of Anatomy. The following is a copy of an order authorizing the Secretary of the College to give up a body:
“Ordered.
“That the body of Mary Whittenbach executed this day at the Old Bailey for murder be delivered (after the necessary dissection by the College) to Mr. Joseph Henry Green.
“William Blizard
“Wm. Norris
“Anthy Carlisle.
“Royal College of Surgeons
“17th day of Sept. 1827
“To Mr. Belfour, Secy. to the College.”
There is in the Library of the Royal College of Surgeons of England a series of drawings of the heads of murderers, made by the two Clifts, father and son, when the bodies were brought to the College for dissection. These drawings include Bishop and Williams (see p. [107]),[7] and Bellingham, who was executed in 1812 for the murder of Mr. Perceval in the lobby of the House of Commons.
Earl Ferrers, who suffered the extreme penalty of the law in 1760 for the murder of his steward, was taken to Surgeons’ Hall, where an incision was made in the body; instead of being further dissected it was given over to the relatives for burial.