palgrave historical studies in the criminal corpse and its afterlife DISSECTING THE CRIMINAL CORPSE Staging Post-Execution Punishment in Early Modern England Elizabeth T. Hurren Palgrave Historical Studies in the Criminal Corpse and its Afterlife Series Editors Owen Davies University of Hertfordshire School of Humanities Hatfi eld , United Kingdom Elizabeth T. Hurren University of Leicester School of Historical Studies Leicester , United Kingdom Sarah Tarlow University of Leicester History and Archaeology Leicester , United Kingdom Aim of the Series: This limited, fi nite series is based on the substantive outputs from a major, multi-disciplinary research project funded by the Wellcome Trust, investigating the meanings, treatment, and uses of the criminal corpse in Britain. It is a vehicle for methodological and substantive advances in approaches to the wider history of the body. Focussing on the period between the late seventeenth and the mid-nineteenth centuries as a crucial period in the formation and transformation of beliefs about the body, the series explores how the criminal body had a prominent presence in popular culture as well as science, civic life and medico-legal activity. It is historically signifi cant as the site of overlapping and sometimes contradictory understandings between scientifi c anatomy, criminal justice, popular medicine, and social geography. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14694 Elizabeth T. Hurren Dissecting the Criminal Corpse Staging Post-Execution Punishment in Early Modern England This book is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ), which permits use, duplication, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this book are included in the work’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if such material is not included in the work’s Creative Commons license and the respective action is not permitted by statutory regulation, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to duplicate, adapt or reproduce the material. Elizabeth T. Hurren School of Historical Studies University of Leicester Leicester , United Kingdom ISBN 978-1-137-58248-5 ISBN 978-1-137-58249-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-58249-2 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016943515 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and the Author(s) 2016 The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identifi ed as the author(s) of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Open Access This book is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, duplication, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. 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Pro Sempra Contra This book is dedicated with love To my brother, David John Wright & my god-daughter Miss Ellen Rose De Banke As well as, with great affection and family fun to HMKB CONTENTS PART I – Introduction 1 1 The Condemned Body Leaving the Courtroom 3 2 Becoming Really Dead: Dying by Degrees 33 3 In Bad Shape: Sensing the Criminal Corpse 69 PART II – Preamble 119 4 Delivering Post-Mortem ‘Harm’: Cutting the Corpse 125 5 Mapping Punishment: Provincial Places to Dissect 171 6 The Disappearing Body: Dissection to the Extremities 217 vii viii CONTENTS 7 ‘He that Hath an Ill-Name Is Half-Hanged’: The Anatomical Legacy of the Criminal Corpse 275 Bibliography 293 Index 313 LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1 Basic ways to cut the criminal corpse in England under the Murder Act, circa 1752 152 Table 4.2 The seven anatomical methods of a complete dissection of the criminal corpse, circa 1760 to 1832 161 Table 5.1 Establishment of English provincial voluntary hospitals where post- mortem punishment is known to have taken place after opening, 1730–1810 185 Table 5.2 Preston physicians, surgeons and apothecaries, circa 1831 192 Table 6.1 Audience participation activities at criminal dissections 1752 to 1832 231 Table 6.2 Location of criminal dissections and their respective research activities by 1800 248 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1 The medical gaze and the embodied criminal corpse, 1752–1832. 79 Figure 4.1 Geography of buildings and places associated with capital punishment in the City of London after the Murder Act 1752. 131 Figure 4.2 Ranking of the Company staff and visitors at Surgeon’s Hall, London, circa 1734. 143 Figure 5.1 Condemned bodies sentenced to death with post-mortem punishment under the Murder Act, circa 1752–1832. 175 Figure 5.2 Convictions under the Murder Act, 1752–1832 (including Admirality cases). 176 Figure 5.3 Corpses made available to surgeons under the Murder Act, in London compared with provincial England, circa 1752–1832. 177 Figure 5.4 The fi rst-rank of 10 leading English counties that sentenced the condemned to dissection and punished them post-mortem, circa 1752–1832. 179 Figure 5.5 The second-rank of body-suppliers in English counties where criminal corpses were made available for dissection, circa 1752–1832. 180 Figure 5.6 The third-rank of body-suppliers in English counties where criminal corpses were made available for dissection, circa 1752–1832. 181 Figure 6.1 A new model of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century curiosity at criminal dissections. 230 xi xii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 6.2 The Dead-End of the criminal corpse and its daily audiences. 233 Figure 6.3 William Webster’s corpse, dissection day, Derby, 1807, reconstruction of those present. 235 Figure 7.1 The Dangerous Dead under the Murder Act, circa 1752–1832. 281 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Front Cover © Wellcome Trust, Images Collection, L0018093, The second stage of dissection , 1798 original drawing of a criminal corpse by Charles Bell; Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) Illustration 1.1 © Wellcome Trust Image Collection, Slide Number L0031335, ‘The Dead-Alive’, illustrating a man supposed to be dead arising from his coffi n, coloured aquatint, published 1805, after a 1784 drawing by Henry Wigstead, (London: William Holland, Oxford Street); Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) 18 Illustration 2.1 © Royal College of Surgeons Library, William Clift Collection, Box 67b.13, ‘Sketch of Elizabeth Ross’ and associated dissection notes on criminal corpses; Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) 46 Illustration 3.1 © New York Public Library, Digital Collections, NYPL: b16830809, taken from Spencer Collection, Spencer Coll. Eng. 1815-16, Thomas Rowlandson (1815), ‘Death in the Dissection Room’, original sketch published in ‘The English Dance of Death’; from the designs by Thomas Rowlandson with metrical illustrations by J. Diggens published by R. Ackermann London 1814-16; Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) 103 xiii xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Illustration 3.2 © Trustees of the British Museum, William Hogarth (1751), ‘The Reward of Cruelty’, Image Reference, S, 2. 126, Digital Image Number AN16677001, engraving; Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) 107 Illustration 4.1 © Wellcome Trust Image Collection, Slide Number M0015855, ‘Edward Stanton at the Saw and Crown in Lombard Street London’ (1754-61): ‘lancet-maker: maketh and selleth all sorts of surgeons instruments likewise razors scissors penknives knives & forks... note: lancets and other instruments carefully ground and sett’, business card; Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) 134 Illustration 4.2 © Science Museum, Science and Society Picture Library, Image Number 10572107, ‘Set of dissecting chain hooks, steel, by Savigny and Co. of London, 1810–1850’; Creative