At the execution of Bishop and Williams the Sheriffs of London felt that some means should be taken to show gratitude to Mr. Partridge, and the other officials of King’s College, for the way they had brought the murderers to justice. The following letter was therefore addressed to the College of Surgeons:

“Justice Hall,
“Dec. 5, 1831.

“To the Governors and Directors of the College of Surgeons.

“It is our particular desire and we do ask that it may be thought but a reasonable request that the bodies of the malefactors executed in the front of Newgate this morning should be sent to King’s College—by the vigilance of whose surgical establishment these offenders were detected and ultimately brought to justice, we shall therefore feel obliged by your handing over these bodies to the King’s College.

“We are, with great respect,
“Your mo. ob. Servts.,
“J. Cowan
“John Pirie		}Sheriffs.”

The body of Bishop was given to Mr. Partridge, and that of Williams went to Mr. Guthrie at the Little Windmill Street School of Anatomy.

The following account of the reception of one of the bodies is by Mr. T. Madden Stone, for many years an official at the College. It was printed in a series of articles, entitled “Echoes from the College of Surgeons.”[8]

“The executions generally took place at eight o’clock on Mondays, and the ‘cut down,’ as it is called, at nine, although there was no cutting at all, as the rope, with a large knot at the end, was simply passed through a thick and strong ring, with a screw, which firmly held the rope in its place, and when all was over, Calcraft, alias ‘Jack Ketch,’ would make his appearance on the scaffold, and by simply turning the screw, the body would fall down. At once it would be placed in one of those large carts with collapsible sides, only to be seen in the neighbourhood of the Docks, and then preceded by the City Marshal in his cocked hat, and, in fact, all his war paint, with Calcraft and his assistant in the cart, the procession would make its way to 33 Hosier Lane, West Smithfield, in the front drawing room of which were assembled Sir William Blizard, President of the Royal College of Surgeons, and members of the Court desirous of being present, with Messrs. Clift (senior and junior), Belfour, and myself. On extraordinary occasions visitors were admitted by special favour. The bodies would then be stripped, and the clothes removed by Calcraft as his valuable perquisites, which, with the fatal rope, were afterwards exhibited to the morbidly curious, at so much per head, at some favoured public-house. It was the duty of the City Marshal to be present to see the body ‘anatomised,’ as the Act of Parliament had it. A crucial incision in the chest was enough to satisfy the important City functionary above referred to, and he would soon beat a hasty retreat, on his gaily-decked charger, to report the due execution of his duty. These experiments concluded, the body would be stitched up, and Pearson, an old museum attendant, would remove it in a light cart to the hospital, to which it was intended to present it for dissection.”

These bodies of murderers were the only ones which could be legally used for dissection; it is therefore obvious that the number was quite insufficient for the wants of the Metropolitan Schools, and the teachers were thus forced to obtain a supply from other sources.