Peter had sat all night by his father’s bedside. As dawn broke, the first light crept under the
torn curtains. He splashed cold water over his face, shuddering at the sudden shock. He
stared at the image looking back at him in the pock-marked mirror. The once cheeky
expression of the young apprentice had aged in the last few weeks. Dull, red-rimmed eyes
and a sallow, drawn face stared back at him. How often, Peter had wanted to grow up, to be
the Master shoe maker who could care for his father. In those dreams, his father had been
digging potatoes in the small back yard, enjoying an ale, on a summer’s evening at ‘The
Coach and Horses’, walking on the sands at Brighton. Brighton! Pete had never seen the sea.
Well, only in an old story book which he’d found in Mr Spinney’s small library. His father had
once been on a sort of fairy palace, called a pier, on a day trip to Southend. It had a horse
drawn railway over two miles long and boats could anchor off the end.
His reverie was interrupted by a cheery voice, ‘Morning, Master Peter. How’s yer father
doing this morning? Now don’t you worry. Hurry or else you’re going to be late. I saved a
nice bowl of gruel for ‘im. Nice bowl of gruel will do ‘im the world of good.’
‘Mrs Appleby, I don’t know what we would do without you.’ Peter smiled at the plump,
reassuring back view of his upstairs neighbour who had already tied a white apron round her
ample waist and was busy heating the gruel on the cantankerous, old stove
‘Yer father’s a good man and a good neighbour. Many a time, he’s called the doctor out for
my Susie and paid the bill too.’
‘I’m sure Mr Spinney will let me come home a little early today. He knows father’s been very sick.’
Peter and Mr Spinney’s five other apprentices usually slept on mattresses under the
counters at the back of the workshop but Peter, as a special concession, had been allowed
home during his father’s illness. He had to walk the three miles between the rooms in
Shadwell and his Master’s workshop in Convent Garden. That early in the morning the
London traffic was not yet the jungle of elegant carriages, large coaches, carts and waggons
it would become by midday. Besides, Peter knew the short cuts through narrow lanes and
winding alleys as he traversed the City of London itself. Crossing Covent Garden market, he
was soon dodging porters pushing barrows loaded with colourful flowers of every colour and
perfume. Cascades of bright yellow daffodils were laid out beside scarlet tulips and elegant
posies of shy violets peeping from behind bright green leaves.
For the last two months, Peter had been working under the eagle-eyed journey man, John
Bryant. Nothing short of ‘perfect’ ever escaped John’s scrutiny. Peter, always an enthusiastic
learner, had now mastered the demanding technique of shaping and moulding the leather
over the last which gave the shoe its characteristic shape. He was trusted to work
unsupervised, the journeyman checking up on him occasionally. As he sat down, Peter
noticed Master Spinney deep in the morning ‘Times’. He nodded at Peter, before continuing
reading.
Suddenly, he emerged from behind the newspaper. ‘This is a terrible business up in
Edinburgh. These body snatchers, these so called ‘resurrectionists’. I don’t know what the
authorities were doing, letting them get away with the murder of sixteen poor souls. Then
selling the bodies at seven pounds a go to Dr Knox for his anatomical lectures. Yes, Burke
and Hare indeed, more like the devil and his apprentice! ‘
‘And it’s not only the Scots. It’s becoming common not far from here. There’s a gang in East
London’s Bethnal Green. They call them ‘the Bethnal Green Burkers’. Nowhere is safe, not
even the grave.’ John Porter’s usually calm voice sounded angry.
Two nights later just before midnight, Peter suddenly awoke. The old arm chair was not the
most comfortable place to sleep in. Most of the night he was dozing, rather than sleeping
soundly. He went to his father’s bedside. The heavy breathing and rapid rise and fall of his
chest had stopped. Peter gently pushed back the thick, grey hair from his father’s forehead.
For the first time for many days, it felt cool. The fever had broken. Peter held his father’s
hand, whispering to him softly. He felt the rough fingers with their broken nails respond with
a feeble, but discernible, squeeze. Two hours later, Mrs Appleby bustled in with a bowl of
beef broth, to find Peter asleep in the chair, still clasping his dead father’s hand.
° ° °
The next days passed like a slow dream. Peter had never thought of life without his father.
He had always been there. Since his mother’s death from puerperal fever a week after
Peter’s birth, he had been the only person in Peter’s life, a pillar of strength and love. Mrs
Appleby took over the ‘death affairs’ as she called all the problems of laying-outs, burial
clubs, pauper funerals and the dreaded body snatchers which beset the poor of the 19th
Century. She and another tenant friend had washed and carefully laid out the body in his
father’s tiny bedroom. Peter felt no fear of sleeping in the cluttered apartment with a
corpse. On the contrary, he felt his father was with him still, in spirit. Above all, the most
important thing was to avoid a pauper’s funeral. This was the dread which had haunted his
father and the majority of the poor and destitute. Peter remembered his father’s voice
relating the horrifying tale from nearby St Botolph’s Church in Aldgate ‘I was walking past
the graveyard when I heard a terrible screaming. I ran through the gates with a couple of
young lads. A crowd was gathered round a deep grave- it must have been over twenty feet
deep. Some women was screaming like blue murder they was. The stink from the grave was
something awful. A young grave digger had fallen down into the grave and a youngster had
tried to rescue’ ‘im. Both was suffocated by the poisonous fumes from the coffins, some of
them broken open and stinking. I thought, God save me from a pauper’s burial. ‘
Those words, ‘God save me from a pauper’s burial’ had stuck in young Peter’s head as he
listened to the dreadful account.
This was a spectre that haunted the poor. The thought of no prayers or funeral service, a
crude wooden coffin, thrown into a mass grave, over twenty feet deep, no headstone, no
name, this was the fate of the destitute in the workhouse or anyone buried at the expense
of the parish. It was above all a social disgrace which respectable families tried to avoid. The
bodies of young babies and infants were even crammed into adult coffins to save on parish
expenses.
Despite his poverty, Peter’s father had paid three pennies a week to the local Burial Society,
a sort of insurance to cover the costs of his and his child’s funerals. Unfortunately, during his
illness, he had fallen into arrears with his payments. These societies were all too frequently
fraudulent. There had been a recent case in Birmingham where the committee of a burial
club were shown to have held meetings in a local public house and entrusted the club’s
money to the landlord. It was found to have vanished into thin air, or more probably, into
the landlord’s pockets. Fortunately, the tenants of the boarding house generously made up
the deficit for Peter’s father. He had avoided the dreaded pauper’s fate.
° ° °
Peter stood at the graveside at Christchurch, Spitalfields with Mrs Appleby and some of the
other tenants. Mr Spinney had paid for a black suit for Peter and Mrs Appleby had fixed a
black ribbon round his father’s old top hat. After stuffing it with newspaper, Peter had
managed valiantly to stop it falling over his eyes. It was a chilly April evening, the sky was
darkening, the red light from the setting sun shone through the branches of a line of craggy,
ancient sycamores. It cast a strange crimson light on the mourners in their piecemeal
assortment of mourning dress. Some of the men had black armbands over coloured suits,
others had black jackets over check trousers and the women wore dark shawls to hide
coloured blouses His father would have been deeply moved by their efforts. Peter vowed to
start saving for a gravestone with both his parents’ names engraved on it.
As they walked back through the gloom, Peter noticed all the precautions against body
snatching and the tricks of the notorious Bethnal Green ‘Burkers’. Some graves had heavy
wooden planks laid across them. Others had ‘mort safes’, iron bars which covered the sides
of the graves and went deep below the ground. In the corner of the graveyard of
Christchurch, a watch tower had been constructed for paid guards or family members to
keep watch for the potential robbers of the dead.
As they passed the watch tower, a guard was waiting to climb up the stairs and take up his
watch.
‘I don’t want to intrude on your grief but that new grave in the corner is a likely target for
the ‘Burkers’. It’s easy to climb over the wall and the grave is quite shallow. Of course, they
can see too, it’s a freshly dug grave.’ The guard’s voice echoed hollowly in the darkness.
‘I’ll keep you company, for a couple of hours,’ a young tenant spoke from the back of the
funeral party.
‘I’m staying too,’ Peter sounded bolder than he felt. The prospect of a cold night in the
company of the dead and the possibility of a bruising fight with the living was not
particularly inviting!
Several hours passed in the small round room at the top of the tower. The windows gave a
clear view of the church yard. It was a moonlit night and the individual grave stones shone
an eerie silver.
‘I just hope the ‘Burkers’ try that grave under the old yew trees, over there.’ The guard
pointed to the south corner of the cemetery.
‘Why? Is it the grave of a wealthy lord or merchant- the head of one of the City Guilds?’
Peter sounded curious.
‘Well, let’s say he done well in the West Indian trade. That grave has got a primed cemetery
gun with a trip wire. Whoever triggers that is going to be mighty surprised!’
‘Why’s this deadly trade become so widespread? I heard about a stage coach in York only
last week when a coachman refused to upload a suspicious package. Turned out to be the
corpse of seventeen- year -old girl with fair hair and blue eyes, bent in half to fit in the
wicker hamper!’ The young tenant looked to the guard for answers to these horrific
questions.
‘You know, body snatching is no crime. The law don’t reckon a corpse has legal rights.
There’s so many medical schools and so many what wants to study anatomy that there aint
enough bodies. So, some gangs have started ‘burking’. I mean they’re murdering people
and providing the goods themselves.’
Peter guessed it must have been well after midnight when the guard prodded him awake.
At the south corner of the cemetery, three men in dark coats and with scarves masking their
faces, were creeping stealthily along, under cover of the overhanging wall. At least one other
man seemed to be moving on the opposite side of the grave yard. An East wind had arisen
and a bank of clouds covered the moon. The graveyard was dark, the grave robbers’
shadows difficult to distinguish, among the black trees and the outlines of the graves and
monuments.
‘They’ll all be armed. We have only my old blunderbuss. Our best plan is to follow them and
track where they take the body.’ The guard’s whispered words suggested he had no stomach
for a midnight battle in the pitch- dark cemetery.
In the far corner of the churchyard, Peter could see the light of a lantern but it was too dark
to distinguish what was happening. He could hear the sound of digging, of spades striking
flints, of cussing and swearing carried on the wind. He feared it was his father’s grave they
were desecrating, but he could not be sure.
Suddenly there was a gun shot and a flash in the darkness. For a second the scene was lit up
as bright as day. Three men were bending over his father’s grave. They were bundling
something into a dark sack. On the south side, where the gun had been fired, a dark figure
lay on the ground screaming and writhing in agony.
‘You follow the lot with the body. Don’t let them see you. Watch where they go.’ The guard
indicated to Peter. ‘You come with me to see where the gun was triggered.’ He pulled the
startled young man by the sleeve.
Peter ran down the tower steps two at a time. He kept in the shadow of the wall as two men
climbed into the road and the third heaved the sack over, before following. Peter knew the
area like the back of his hand. Two men were holding the sack between them, the third
seemed to be leading the way. Peter hung back in the shadows, trying not to think about the
sack. He concentrated on that last night when he knew his father had responded by
squeezing his hand.
By then the gang had crossed into Gresham Street. The gas lights shone on the three men
who seemed to be making for Cheapside. Peter drew back in the shadows by the iron
railings. The men rarely looked back. They were concentrating on reaching their
destination as quickly as possible. The usually crowded roads were silent and deserted.
The slightest sound echoed in the empty streets. Peter pulled off his shoes and walked in his
stockings in an effort to muffle the sound of his footsteps.
By then, he was certain that St Bartholomew’s Hospital was the intended destination as
they entered Paternoster Row in the great shadow of St Paul’s. The three dark figures cut
through a narrow alley leading to the back of London’s oldest hospital. They suddenly
stopped in front of a small door in the grey stone wall and knocked quietly. Taken by
surprise, Peter flattened himself against the wall, desperately hoping they wouldn’t look
back. The door opened almost immediately. The gang had obviously been expected.
Ten minutes later, Peter was shivering and his feet were numb with cold. He clearly could
not wait in the street until daylight. Equally clearly, he could not confront the notorious
gang who was said to drug its victims with laudanum, before drowning them in a well to
present an undamaged body to the schools of anatomy.
Suddenly, the door opened. The three men came out. For a moment they stood in the light,
clearly sharing the blood money between them, before pulling their scarves over their faces
and disappearing down a narrow lane between tall, dark buildings.
Peter had noted the sound of the knock which had opened the door immediately- two soft
knocks, followed by a louder strike. Shaking with cold and fear, Peter raised a freezing hand
and repeated the pattern, one, two and a third knock, as loud as his frozen fingers could
deliver. He waited, no response. He would try once more. Before he could raise his hand, he
heard footsteps approaching on the other side of the door. As it opened, Peter stumbled
over the threshold.
He felt himself falling. Before he hit the stone floor, he was caught by strong arms, partly
covered by a black cloak. He looked up into a stern yet kindly face, before his head seemed
to be spinning at an alarming speed and his sight had become clouded and hazy.
Peter recovered consciousness in a room full of shelves with hundreds of books crammed
on them, from floor to ceiling.
‘Feeling a little better, young man?’ asked a calm voice from an armchair at the side of a
blazing fire.
‘Yes, thank you sir. I think I fainted.’
‘Not surprising. Do you make a habit of waiting in the road in the small hours of a very
cold morning?’
‘No sir. But I’m looking for my father. He died you see, sir.’ Peter searched for the right words.
‘Well, I’m sorry but if he’s dead, there’s little point . . .’ The man’s voice came to an abrupt
stop. ‘You don’t mean it was his body which was brought here tonight?’ For the first time
the voice sounded unsure, even anxious.
Peter pictured the sack being thrown over the wall, carried through the dark streets,
disappearing behind the door in the wall. He remembered his father’s fear of ‘a pauper’s
funeral’, his own promise of a gravestone with his parents’ names. He began sobbing
uncontrollably.
Peter felt a protective arm round his shoulders and a reassuring voice in his ear.
‘You listen to what’s going to happen, my boy. First, if you want to, I’ll show you your
father’s body, laid out and unharmed. Secondly, I will arrange for his body to be returned
to Christchurch at Spitalfields and to be re-interred by the gravedigger there. Once the grave
has settled, we can think about a gravestone with a suitable engraving. Do you think he
would approve of that?’
‘Yes, sir. There’s just one thing, sir. I am saving up for a gravestone and I already know the
inscription.’
If Peter had looked up at that moment, he might have seen the suggestion of a tear running
down the cheek of Mr Algenon Spencer Davies FRCS.
The room was dark, with one light shining over a bed. Peter could see the outline of a figure
covered by a white sheet. It was cold and bare, empty except for the bed. Mr Davies had
asked Peter for a second time whether he wanted to see his father again. Peter had nodded
his assent. Now he walked to the head of the bed and slowly drew the sheet back to
reveal the familiar face. The eyes were closed and a look of peace rested on the much loved
face. Peter told his father about the events of the night. He reassured him about the future
and his plans for the gravestone. As he told Mr Davies later, ‘I’m sure he understood,
wherever he is.’
° ° °
Five years later, the summer of 1832 had been warm. The sun shone through the old
sycamores, now in full leaf. A small group of familiar figures stood in the corner of the
churchyard at Christchurch, Spitalfields. Mrs Appleby, her waist a little wider, her hair a little
greyer, was next to those loyal friends from the Shadwell boarding house. Mr Spinney,
rather stouter, but smart in his black suit, was proud of his recently promoted young
journeyman. Peter, dapper in a new suit was standing next to a pretty girl, in an elegant
summer bonnet and sprigged muslin dress who shyly clasped his hand. They were all leaning
forward to admire a black gravestone, with the gold letters gleaming in the summer sun-
‘In Proud Memory of John Leonard Higham,
Born 1772 – Died 1827
Beloved husband of Jane Eliza Higham
Much loved father of Peter John Higham
Mrs Appleby voiced the feelings of the assembled crowd, ‘Peter, your father would be so proud of you!’
Note
The Bethnal Green ‘Burkers’ were executed at Newgate in 1830. Their bodies were dissected at King’s College Hospital.
The 1832 Anatomy Act made it legal for medical schools to use bodies which remained unclaimed after 48 hours from work houses, prisons and hospitals.
The use of embalming before the end of 19th century, ended body snatching as corpses
could be used by medical schools over a much longer period.