ABSTRACT
Under the terms of the Murder Act the body of the hanged was returned to Newgate Prison. Resurrecting was hard physical labour and sometimes medical students sought to avoid all that digging by bribing servants to gain access to the coffin of a dead master or mistress. The Times reported many cases of bodysnatching. Joseph Naples listed all the bodies his gang provided to anatomy teachers in the capital of London. As the young James Williams discovered while a pupil lodging with William Hunter, human bodies were bought and sold. Hunter had the body transported by hackney coach to his country place in Earl's Court. The description of lithograph in the online catalogue of Wellcome Library notes that Dr Helen Brock questioned whether this could be Hunter's dissecting room in Windmill Street. John Hunter's anatomy theatre at his home in Leicester Square was similarly lit for obvious reasons.
