Welcome to my Site and the Wonderful World of Body Snatching

If you think you’re about to dive into a website that shares story after story of dull accounts where men simply visited a grave, dug up a corpse then left, think again. This is a blog dedicated to all things body snatching and I hope you won’t be disappointed.

I’m about to share with you the reality of body snatching. To introduce to you to the men that history has forgotten and who Burke and Hare have pushed out of the limelight.

Making Discoveries

I’ll be sharing stories of hampers that are found on the back of coaches and where the smell was that nauseous that officials were more than a little apprehensive about opening the lid.

You’re going to be reading accounts where fluid from a corpse was found oozing out from the corner of the box in which it was stored, all because of delays in shipment.

Not only that but I’ll be retelling stories of body snatchers dressing up cadavers and sitting them at the front of their gig pretending they’re a passenger.

And on occassion sharing stories of when they’ve actually dug up their own relatives for the dissecting table.

‘Dead Ends’

It’s inevitable that all of this searching through historic newspapers digs up a few ‘dead ends’. However, reports on body snatching attempts that have been discovered after the churchyard has been raided don’t always lead to unearthing a juicy case in the archives.

Some snippets are just that, ‘Dead Ends’ but I still think it’s important to share these with you . What’s the point of researching and keeping it all to myself.

You can find all of these snippets in the section entitled ‘Dead Ends’. I don’t elaborate on the posts or try to jazz them up with a back story, they are simply designed to be quick snippets to read if you visit my site but don’t have time to stay too long.

Prevention

If reading about the cadavers isn’t your thing, then dig deeper to learn the body snatchers modus operandi or click on the following link which will take you to all my posts relating to body snatching prevention.

From the humble pile of sticks that I discuss in my post about body snatching prevention for the poor which you can read here to the more elaborate caged lairs and a coffin collar which you can access here, we’re going to be dissecting all aspects of the body snatching trade.

Even down to how archaeologists are today finding evidence of body snatching in parishes that we didn’t even know were targeted. Not a stone will be left unturned.

I’ve been researching body snatchers since 2005. Reading how men, and occasionally women, dug up freshly buried bodies, knocked their teeth out with a bradawl, stuffed them into a sack, and carted them off to the anatomists ready to be dissected later that morning.

Trust me, there’s nothing dull about body snatching.

Why me…?

You’ll stumble on lots of sites because of your interest in the macabre world of body snatching, and while I can’t promise I won’t share bad photographs with you, I can promise that I’ve done my research.

As a qualified archivist, I can still put my archive training to good use.

I scour the archives and record offices across the country and delve into pages of the British Newspaper Archive whenever I get a free moment.

If I don’t know something, or haven’t been to that archives yet, I’m not afraid to admit it.