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Resurrectionists at Hill Cliff.


Tracey Bennett

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"On Sunday the mother of the deceased went to the grave and at that time all was safe. On Monday morning all was still undisturbed. But on Tuesday morning it was discovered that the grave had been robbed, the coffin broken open, and the body taken away: the place had been left in such a state as showed either that the parties had been disturbed, or that they were perfectly reckless of shame and decency ... two of the defendants ... were seen late on Tuesday night to go to the premises of Dr Albert Moss ... and introduce a large hamper ..." Liverpool Advertiser March 18 1828.

 

 

 

chesterchronicle21March1828.png

 

 

<shiver> Taken from Outrages Fatal and Other by Derek Yarwood. It really is a great book, if you can find it on Amazon or abebooks.co.uk it's worth getting.

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Yeuch... fancy digging up a grave and removing a dead body but even worse fancy going to tend you loved ones grave to find they had been taken :shock::(

 

Any idea why they did it Tracey, was it for general medical research or maybe a late autopsy to determine cause of death

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The ressurectionists dug up freshly buried bodies for medical men to use for research. Burke and Hare were famous ressurectionists except they started cutting out the middle man i.e. they started murdering people to supply the bodies to the doctors and saved themselves the bother of all that digging :shock: :shock:

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The defence of Hall, Blundell and Box was based on the fact that they were 'respectable' medical students and because of the way the law was at the time (I think Dr's were required to study anatomy yet the supply of bodies were severely restricted) they were more or less forced to do it. Hence they didn't get a prison sentence, just a fine.

 

Also in the book is a case in Liverpool which was really grim. A 'death house' was discovered in Hope St which was basically a business exporting bodies packed in barrels of salt through the Port. The anatomy schools in Scotland needed so many bodies even Burke and Hare couldn't keep them supplied!

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  • 1 month later...

Thanks for posting this Tracey even though it came as a bit of a shock.

In defence of my 3x gt. grandfather Richard Box, his only part in this unsavoury behaviour was to help move the unfortunate woman from a basement into the doctor's room.  He wasn't even a respectable medical student, he was a victualler, landlord of the Seven Stars, where my 2x gt. grandmother was born, probably called on because he owned a horse and cart.  He also claimed damages for false arrest and imprisonment, however he would have been 65 years old at this time and I can't imagine that he didn't know what was going on.

I have ordered the book, here's hoping that no other family member shows up in it.

 

By the way, the name Bennett.  Don't suppose you are related by any chance?  Richard Box was married to Kitty Bennett.  Kitty was the great aunt of the mayor of Warrington whos name escapes me at the moment, Arthur or something like that.

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No way! Yes, I am related to Arthur but very distantly, I'm descended from Kitty's brother, Richard. I've just been and checked my tree and, yes, I have got Richard Box on there as Kitty's husband but haven't looked into their descendants. 

 

That's amazing, thanks for posting, You're the second distant relative I've discovered this weekend  :lol:

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Hiya Delemzadoe

 

Great that you could shed a little more light on the newspaper story, very interesting.

 

If you and Tracey hadn't posted what you did about your distant 'Bennett' family connection though I wouldn't have had another look at my other half's family tree again.  It's all on my ancestry tree as we linked a large part of his in as one of his relatives did almost all of his side. 

 

Anyway..... Kitty (Bennett) is my other half's fathers 3rd great grand aunt   8)

 

I was wonering though Delemzadoe (and yes I AM still stuck Tracey) but you mention that Kitty was Alderman Arthur Bennetts great aunt...

 

Do you know any more about the link between him and her as Alderman Arthur Bennett (according to my late mums note on photo's of him) was  MY maternal grandfathers cousin :blink: but for the life of me I just can't link him in to my mums side of the tree.  Any ideas ?

 

Thanks and it's a very small world at times eh ?

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OK, Dizzy, if Arthur Bennett was you maternal grandfather's cousin, then your maternal grandfather must have descended from the same grandparents as Arthur.

William Bennett and Mary Guest were my 4x gt. grandparents, and either 4th or 5th of Tracey's gt. grandparents.  They had at least twelve children.  Tracey came from Richard, Arthur came from William and I came from Kitty (Catherine)  Your grandfather obviously came from one of the others, and you are not stuck for choice, you have four other males and five females to track down.  Of the females I have married names of Hulmes, Swinton and Baxter.  If you have a married name then tracing back (or forward) shouldn't be a huge problem.  Any of those sound familiar?

And I guess your other half has descended from one of those twelve Bennetts too since my 3x grandmother was a 3x great aunt of his father.  So hello to all you distant cousins out there.

 

I'm stuck on William Bennett 1733 - 1786.  I can't find his background, which makes me think that he was not born in Daresbury and therefore was the first, and probably the only, Bennett to move there.  Can you shed any light on that Tracey?

The Guest family it would seem have dwelt in Hatton and Hale for generations.

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Same here, I can't get any further back than William Bennett (my 7th Great Grandfather!). It could always be that the record hasn't survived. Eg William's grandson was also called William, born in Thelwall but no trace of a baptism record. I only managed to break through one of my brick walls and link him into the overall Bennett tree via a will left by his brother in which he is named. I do occasionally come across Bennetts whom I can't place on our tree, I assume there's a common ancestor somewhere we can't break through to. 

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A revelation that Observer might want to be kept quiet.

Fat Chance!, although I must admit he has been rather quiet lately! :unsure:

 

Unable to get away from Bennett's, my mother in law's maiden name was Bennett but the originated from Dorset, I think her Great Grandfather had the Raven public. house in St Helens.

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  • 2 months later...
Hiya Tracey

why, whenever I try to look at the photos in this and any other of your posts do I find "sorry this member has deleted thid photograph"

RC, perhaps I should explain this situation, I tend to post a large amount of photos on the history or photos of Warrington sections, all from my Photobucket account and to prevent it becoming unmanagable, when they have been on here for a couple of months or so I delete them fom photobucket which results in them disappearing from here. If you post on here or PM me and identify the photo or photos that you are interested in, I'm more than happy to place them back on the forum.

Although in this instance it looks as if Tracey is the culprit this time!, perhaps she operates in the same way.

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Hiya Tracey

why, whenever I try to look at the photos in this and any other of your posts do I find "sorry this member has deleted thid photograph"

Glad you questioned this Rockcutting, I thought it was just me who couldn't see the photos.  Up until now I was feeling quite left out.  Now it's all OK again.

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