Burke - 05/28/02 03:52 PM
Fibrebabe’s thread on James Burke under Info’ and Announcements reminded me of the word “burke” and I remembered that there is an interesting story behind it.
Burke (v.t.) – smother, avoid,(publicity, inquiry); hush-up, suppress,(rumour).
The derivation of this is from the name of William Burke who was executed in 1829 for smothering at least 16 people in order to sell their bodies for dissection. He and his partner in crime, William Hare, were Irish labourers living in Edinburgh. They carried out these crimes, possibly together with their common law wives Helen McDougal and Margaret Logue respectively, between mid-November 1827 and Halloween 1828, selling the bodies of their victims to Professor Robert Knox an Edinburgh anatomy instructor. For each body they received eight pounds in the summer and ten pounds in the winter.
The team was eventually caught. Hare, agreeing to give evidence and casting all the blame on the Burkes, was released and wisely disappeared, as did his wife, before the mob could catch them. Whilst Burke was executed, his wife’s guilt was found “not proven” which, I believe, is a verdict unique to Scottish law. Knox had to leave Edinburgh due to a sudden lack of students and finally ended up working in a London cancer hospital.
Ironically, Burke’s body was given up for dissection to another Edinburgh anatomy lecturer named Munro, but during the course of the dissection an angry mob formed and rioting began until a public exhibition of the partly dissected body was allowed, with people shuffling past to view it in the dissecting room.
If you search for “Burke and Hare”, you will easily find a number of sites that give the full dreadful story, including at least one contemporaneous account. On reading the details one realises that it is an amazing example of the depths of depravity to which human beings can sink and it appears to have deeply affected the local population at the time even though they themselves must have been living in miserable conditions and extreme poverty. From the details I conclude that Munro was morally as guilty as the two perpetrators, but there would have been insufficient evidence to bring a charge and obtain a conviction “beyond reasonable doubt”.
Burke (v.t.) – smother, avoid,(publicity, inquiry); hush-up, suppress,(rumour).
The derivation of this is from the name of William Burke who was executed in 1829 for smothering at least 16 people in order to sell their bodies for dissection. He and his partner in crime, William Hare, were Irish labourers living in Edinburgh. They carried out these crimes, possibly together with their common law wives Helen McDougal and Margaret Logue respectively, between mid-November 1827 and Halloween 1828, selling the bodies of their victims to Professor Robert Knox an Edinburgh anatomy instructor. For each body they received eight pounds in the summer and ten pounds in the winter.
The team was eventually caught. Hare, agreeing to give evidence and casting all the blame on the Burkes, was released and wisely disappeared, as did his wife, before the mob could catch them. Whilst Burke was executed, his wife’s guilt was found “not proven” which, I believe, is a verdict unique to Scottish law. Knox had to leave Edinburgh due to a sudden lack of students and finally ended up working in a London cancer hospital.
Ironically, Burke’s body was given up for dissection to another Edinburgh anatomy lecturer named Munro, but during the course of the dissection an angry mob formed and rioting began until a public exhibition of the partly dissected body was allowed, with people shuffling past to view it in the dissecting room.
If you search for “Burke and Hare”, you will easily find a number of sites that give the full dreadful story, including at least one contemporaneous account. On reading the details one realises that it is an amazing example of the depths of depravity to which human beings can sink and it appears to have deeply affected the local population at the time even though they themselves must have been living in miserable conditions and extreme poverty. From the details I conclude that Munro was morally as guilty as the two perpetrators, but there would have been insufficient evidence to bring a charge and obtain a conviction “beyond reasonable doubt”.