History question - Google fu not working.

[AnyaKimlin]

Does anyone know when the government stopped letting anatomists have the bodies of those who had been hung or the workhouse poor who could not afford a funeral?

The Anatomy Act was repealed in 1984 was it really that late the practice stopped ? (Well naturally capital punishment and workhouses had stopped by then)

 

[Susan Boulton]

Suggest you look at the Murder Act of 1752 as that stipulated that only the corpses of executed murderers could be used for dissection. The Anatomy Act of 1832 altered things a bit. Also google, "resurrectionists" or "resurrection-men".

Err the last man to be hanged in the UK was in 1964, Capital punishment ended in Great Britain in 1965, Nothern Ireland 1973

Workhouses were still operating in the early part of the 20th century not being formally ended until 1930.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Yes I know - it is specifically when anatomists stopped taking the unclaimed or murderers or workhouse inmates for dissection. Was it really as simple as when capital punishment ended and workhouses closed (the final ones closed as late as 1948)? It is just 1948 and 1964 seemed so late for the ending of the practice.

There was a History Cold Case that may contain the information -- I'll go and watch it.

 

[Glitch]

The following article does suggest the practice continued until the new Anatomy Act 1984 repealed the 1832 act.
The final fate of the poor - the Anatomy Act of 1832

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Yes it is beginning to look like it. I suspect I can have the practice happen in 1912. I was sure it would be too late.

I only want to include paragraphs like this one:

"I was torn between looking at her and dragging my eyes away after all the poor woman should be due some dignity. This lady was poor but respectable. She had a job, which made her different, somehow, to the criminals, insane and the less deserving poor who could not afford to be buried properly otherwise. Mr Leonard had known this woman, possibly most of his life and I would soon know her name. Lying here in context of her death I could not view her as a specimen."