Burke And Hare: 8 Facts About The Bodysnatchers Who Weren't
The Edinburgh duo who grew to be feared and reviled by both the living and the dead.
There are many ways that someone's name can live on long after they've passed away. People achieve great things and their memories are preserved by the art they made, the books they wrote, the music they composed or even just the good things they did for others.
Others live on in infamy, committing acts so awful and crimes so terrible that they remain in the public mind long after they've died. William Burke and William Hare definitely fit more into this second category. Operating in Edinburgh in the 1800s, this pair of names is synonymous even today with the crime of body snatching - illegally exhuming bodies, usually for some sort of financial gain.
They caused uproar in the city, fear among the population and widespread disgust with their actions and choices; they lived a collective life so terrible that it outlived them both.
But who were these men? Why did they do what they did? And why can it be argued that the most famous corpse stealers of all time were really nothing of the sort? Here are eight facts about the body snatchers who weren't.
8. The Men
Burke and Hare shared a great many things by the end. What they shared from the start, long before they ever knew one another, was the first name William.
They were both immigrants from the north of Ireland and both moved across the Irish Sea to Scotland to find work opportunities sometime in the early 1800s. Sources are divided on how they met - although they both worked on the construction of the Union Canal, others maintain that it was only when they both found farm work for the harvest in Midlothian that they became properly acquainted.
However it happened, both men were in a new country and had no real families of their own: Burke had left his wife and children behind when he emigrated and Hare was unmarried. Hare ended up running a lodging house in the West Port area of Edinburgh (just beside the Grassmarket for any who have visited) with a widower who used his surname. Burke had found a new partner and they were invited to lodge with them.
Burke, Hare and their de-facto partners lived together in this arrangement alongside various lodgers and boarders that they took in for additional income.