Burke and Hare: Body Snatch and Murder

In the grim, dark streets of 19th century Edinburgh an illicit trade flourished in dead bodies. Grave-robbing was commonplace but murder less so. Forensic science was a relatively new phenomenon but it needed cadavers, the fresher the cadaver the better the price. Together they were to spawn two of the most notorious serial killers in Scottish history, William Burke and William Hare.

Neither Burke nor Hare were in fact Scottish, both were Irish immigrants. William Burke was born in the town of Urney in County Tyrone around 1792. He is believed to have been relatively well-educated and had served as a soldier. He was a married man with 2 children who seemed to have enjoyed a modicum of respectability. For some reason, unknown to us, he deserted his family in 1817 and emigrated to Scotland. In Edinburgh he struggled to make a living at various trades before finding regular work as a labourer on the Union Canal. He later moved in with Helen MacDougall, who may have been a prostitute. William Hare, was born in Newry, not far from Burke, though it is doubtful that they knew each other in Ireland. His exact birth date is unknown but it was probably around 1800. He also worked as a labourer on the Union Canal and the likelihood is that they first met each other there. In 1826, he married the widow of his landlord, Margaret Laird.

Grave robbing, or body snatching, had become such a common means for poor people to make a few extra pounds that it was not unknown for families to stand guard at the grave of their deceased relatives until they were sure that the bodies had decomposed. It is likely that Burke and Hare were experienced grave robbers but when late in 1827, a tenant at Margaret Laird’s lodging House died still owing rent, Burke and Hare packed him up and took him to the residence of the ambitious Edinburgh surgeon and anatomist, Dr Robert Knox. Fresh cadavers were at a premium in Edinburgh and Dr Knox was happy to pay them £7 10 shillings for it. This was a much easier way of making money than going out in the dead of night to dig up the recently departed from the frozen ground. This was also the most money they had received for a corpse and it was evident that the sooner they could get the corpse to the surgeon the more they would be paid. It was also considerably better than the back-breaking work they were required to do for a pittance on the Union Canal. They informed Knox that they would procure for him a regular supply of fresh cadavers but that it would have to be on a no questions asked basis. Dr Knox agreed.