Burke and Hare murders — series of murders committed in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1828
The Burke and Hare murders directly prompted the Anatomy Act 1832, reforming legal supply of cadavers for medical research in Britain.
Key Facts
- Number of murders
- 16
- Duration of killing spree
- Approximately ten months in 1828
- Price paid per corpse
- £7 10s
- Burke's sentence
- Death by hanging
- Legislation prompted
- Anatomy Act 1832
- Burke's skeleton location
- Anatomical Museum, Edinburgh Medical School
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Edinburgh was a leading European centre of anatomical study in the early 19th century, creating high demand for cadavers. Scottish law restricted legal supply to a narrow category of corpses, producing a chronic shortage that fuelled grave-robbing. William Burke and William Hare initially sold the body of a lodger who died naturally, finding the payment of £7 10s attractive enough to pursue further profit through deliberate killing.
Over approximately ten months in 1828, Burke and Hare murdered sixteen people in Edinburgh, suffocating victims to avoid visible injury, then selling the bodies to anatomist Robert Knox for use in his dissection lectures. Their crimes were uncovered when fellow lodgers found their last victim, Margaret Docherty. Hare accepted immunity in exchange for turning king's evidence; Burke was convicted of one murder, sentenced to death, and hanged.
Burke was publicly hanged and his body subsequently dissected, with his skeleton placed on permanent display at Edinburgh Medical School. The case drew wide public attention to the ethical and legal failings around the supply of bodies for medical research, contributing directly to the passage of the Anatomy Act 1832, which expanded the legal sources of cadavers and reduced the incentive for body snatching and murder.