Scottish Bodysnatchers (Norman Adams, Leopard Magazine)

 

 

Make no bones about it; this is a richly-researched and illustrated guide to a dark chapter in our social history – grave-robbing in pre-Victorian times. No stone is left unturned in the search of the activities of the resurrectionists from the Borders to the Highlands.

 

The grisly trade grew out of the demand by medical schools for freshly-buried bodies for research purposes. Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen, were the main centres for anatomical teaching. The problem was the only bodies that could be legitimately obtained were of executed murderers and, because each student was expected to dissect at least one cadaver, there just weren’t enough.

 

The unpalatable solution was for medical students (and sometimes their doctors) to steal corpses. Poorly-paid gravediggers got in on the act by either lifting ‘subjects’ or tipping off bodysnatchers. When the unsavoury business became profitable in Edinburgh around 1819, criminals appeared. Prices were highest in Edinburgh (£10 for a body in good condition in winter) and lowest in Aberdeen.

 

The book carries true accounts of bodysnatching and descriptions of 260 sites, including those in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and Moray, featuring grave-protection methods such as watch-houses, mortsafes, mortstones and vaults.

 

A reprint of Robert Louis Stevenson’s tale ‘The Body Snatcher’ makes a chilling tailpiece.

 

Norman Adams, Leopard Magazine, December 2010/January 2011.