Customer Reviews

The Italian Boy: A Tale of Murder and Body Snatching in 1830s London

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

They were known as "grabs", "lifters", "exhumators", and especially as "resurrection men." The number of euphemisms for their trade indicates a distaste for it; they were bodysnatchers, and in nineteenth century London, they had a good, if not respectable, trade. Sarah Wise, in _The Italian Boy: A Tale of Murder and Body Snatching in 1830s London_ (Metropolitan Books), has revived (so to speak) a story that has not been retold since the newspapers and broadsheets made it a sensation in its time. Far more famous is the case of the "Edinburgh Horrors" wherein William Burke and William Hare had not only snatched bodies but had manufactured them by murdering the victims first. Their crimes have entered literature and the movies, and "to burke" is even a term for the act. Three years later in 1831, similar crimes in London came to light and horrified and fascinated Londoners. Wise's book will do the same for the modern reader.

For medical students and anatomists in England, there was only one legal supply of cadavers for dissection, the gallows; getting cut up for show was another particular indignity that could be extended to the condemned. This might have been enough in years gone by, but in 1831 only 52 people were executed. A freshly exhumed corpse would fetch around ten guineas, at a time when a well-paid workingman might bring home eighty guineas a year, so the trade could be lucrative. Carlo Ferrari was a pretty fourteen-year-old street urchin who walked the city with his cage of white mice (and maybe a turtle) until he ran into the villains of this tale. The resurrectionists involved lured him to a home in a semi-rural part of the city, drugged him and drowned him, and then set off to peddle his body. When it looked too fresh, the police were called, and an investigation showed that Ferrari had not been the only victim. Less than a month after the murder was made public, John Bishop, James May, and Thomas Williams stood trial in the Old Bailey. In a fitting conclusion to their careers, the resurrection men found guilty were resurrected onto the anatomist's table. It was discovered that Bishop "... had an extraordinarily good physique, proving far more useful as a specimen than the produce he used to deliver."

The trial was a big case for the new London police force, and the role of the Police Inspector, then a novelty, was highlighted and began its acceptance by the public. The trial threw light on the horrid trade, its prevalence and the medical men who were accessories in its perpetuation. It served as a spark to reformation, contributing to the passing of the second Anatomy Bill in 1832, which allowed bodies other than those of the hanged miscreants to be a source of instruction. The unclaimed bodies of paupers could thereupon be used for dissection, and thus the "horrors" of the dissecting table started becoming less horrible; today enlightened future corpses often will their bodies for anatomical teaching. Wise's startling tale, well illustrated and fetid with cesspools, abattoirs, dissecting rooms, prisons, and Tudor slums, opens again a grotesque and brutal underworld and makes for an entertaining, gruesome history.

Before the passage of the 1830's Anatomy Act that allowed medical schools legal usage of bodies of the unclaimed poor, grave robbing was a common occurrence in London and the surrounding countryside. Resurrection men were known to raid newly dug graves and sell the bodies to medical schools for dissection purposes. If a resurrection man was good at his trade he often made more money pedaling the bodies of the dead than the average laborer. Due to the medical establishment's demand for fresh bodies usually outpaced the supply it wasn't uncommon for individuals to be murdered for their bodies.

THE ITALIAN BOY thoroughly examines the notorious crimes of three London resurrection men who were charged with the murder of a young Italian street performer in November 1831. Sarah Wise performs a good job in bringing to life this period of London's history that was full of social and political transformations. Although many of the passages pertaining to the trail were dry, there are enough tidbits of social history to make reading this book more than worthwhile. The descriptions of the police investigations and the infancy of forensic knowledge were interesting, along with everyday descriptions of 1830's London.

The lure of reading books about the underbelly of life in 19th century London is always difficult for me to resist; if you also enjoy this subject matter then this book will give you a satisfying fix to cure your cravings. 4.5 stars. Recommended.

The Italian boy was one of a thousand of orphans living on the London streets in 1831, amongst the poor in company of con artist, beggars and prostitutes. The Italian boy's body was sold to a London medical college and the suppliers of the body were caught and arrested for murder. When this high profile court case took place it was unravelled there was a London trade in human corpses. These men hid behind the complete chaos of a growing city. Choosing their prey amongst low lives whose bodies would never be missed. These Murderous thieves two in particular John Bishop and Thomas Williams were known to the City of London as the Body Snatchers (The London Burkers) a third was arrested soon after James May, they killed to satisfy their market demand. All three was charged with the murder of Carlo Ferrari. Words spoken in court at the Old Bailey, "The fresher the body the higher the price". Demand was coming from Doctors looking to make a break through in science of the human anatomy fresh dissection was needed.

Sarah Wise the author has weaved a story with historical events using the Investigation into the case of the London Burkers following the trail itself of 1831. Reconstructing the story in her own words looking at the lives of lower-class Londoners, with a vivid description of London with all its sight's and smells bringing life to a city and the characters who were corpse trafficking. Ms Wise follows through the trail, which ended with the controversial legislation (The Anatomy Bill, passed in 1832) which marked the beginning of the end to body-snatching in Britain. Sarah Wise is an historian of Victorian England. This book had me gripped in its pages with fantastic history, descriptions can be gruesome but all woven into a great piece of storytelling.

A.Bowhill

Couldn't slog through this book. Very dry and not in a style I enjoy reading. Couldn't get through it.

Unfortunately, what this book most reminded me of was Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, which was 20% what it claimed to be about and 80% about everything else. This book has a similar ratio -- 20% murder mystery/true crime, 80% 1830s London infodump.

Look, I understand that when you write a book like this, you need to give some historical background to get a sense of the zeitgeist in which the event happened. But there comes a point where zeitgeist overtakes the real plot. I mean, there's even an entire chapter titled "Interlude-Meat" which has NOTHING at all to the murder in even the most tangential sense; it honestly feels like its only reason to be there is to be as unpleasant to read as possible. And even in chapters like "how many?" that ostensibly discuss how many murders the defendants committed ends up spending PAGES wandering off into the private and professional difficulties of an Anglican priest. Why? WHY?

Two stars because the few parts that were about the murder and about the lives/jobs of resurrectionists (body-snatchers) were basically interesting. However, I did quickly get lost in the chronology of the grand jury vs. detective work vs. witnesses vs. trial etc.

Despite the fascinating topic, Sarah Wise has somehow managed to create an oddly sprawling, poorly conceived narrative. The book rambles from the actual case and the related fields of bodysnatching and criminal investigation to broad discussions of poverty, the London meatmarket, and for some reason, the exact dimensions of the perpetrators' gardens. Obviously Wise spent a great deal of time researching the crime and its context, but she also seemed to have a great deal of trouble deciding what details to include and how to connect them to the stated topic.

The Italian Boy: A Tale of Murder and Body Snatching in 1830s London by Sarah Wise, despite its rather lurid title, is a very down to earth study of life in early 19th century London. The author, who is a historian of Victorian period England, is also a journalist with publications in popular magazines, which promises a readable text. While the book's graphic eye catching title definitely lives up to its promise, the story has more to do with the outcome of social and political inequity and with conflicting cultural mores.

Popular and legal culture at once acknowledged that medical practitioners required cadavers for research and training while at the same time making it almost impossible to fulfil the demand without breaking the law. The simple economics of supply and demand almost guaranteed that at least some of those living on the margins of starvation would undertake considerable risks to supply the body trade. They would do so with stolen corpses when available but if incentive were great enough, with the murdered wretched, lonely and unclaimed of their own class when they weren't. In studying just the one episode in London's body trade, the author is able to point out the interaction of simple supply and demand, the dehumanization of lower classes, and the desperation that went into creating the event.

The author goes to considerable efforts to describe the London of the time. There are a number of photographs of the buildings of old London taken just before their demolition in the next century. There are also newspaper illustrations of the buildings and individuals at the time of the proceedings to help the reader envision the ambiance of the drama. The character, background, and interrelationships of the various individuals involved are also described in some detail.

Williams, for one, had already acquired a record and prison time prior to the events of the Italian boy. He had learned a trade while incarcerated, but in order to practice it he needed a license which he could not afford. Progress in penal philosophy afforded him an education which he would not have had, but it did not also afford him the license he needed to actually carry on the profession he had been taught. When he was caught practicing without a license, instead of making arrangements by which he could pay for the license over time when he was able, the tools by which he might have made a living were confiscated. In short, he was in a no win situation, and society with the best of intentions had shot itself once again in the foot.

Given the social conditions of the time and the failure of Parliament to accord the working class a voice in government--as it did in this very time period--Williams and the other disenfranchised like him had very few choices other than breaking the law in some way. The trade in the dead was so lucrative that a man with little or no education, who was willing to risk reputation and health, if not life itself, to resort to body snatching could make, with one theft, the same as a year's wages for the average factory worker. With several a year, he could earn the same as one of the better paid servants or trades people. In short, one could for all intents and purposes go from poverty to the lower middle class by the simple means of disposing of the dead to medical schools. That the three resurrectionists did not achieve that ultimate social transition probably had to do to some extent with their rampant alcoholism.

The book is exceptional. If nothing else, The Italian Boy proves that society reaps what it sows. If people are not given the means to be productive in socially acceptable ways, they will survive and flourish in other ways. If they are not given a voice and some legal power in the state of which they form the bulk of the population, then they will have no stake in supporting laws that disenfrancise and victimize them. The same can be said for modern society.

This book, in alternating chapters, tells the true tale of a murder trial, and also a brief history of "resurrection men", grave-robbers who supplied boldies to anatomists for dissection in the early part of the 19th century in England. It's a gruesome job, and the details given in the book don't help to engender any sympathy for those who practice this trade. The story concerns the body of a young man, known to the press as "The Italian Boy", who was murdered to be sold to the doctors by two resurrection men. The author points out that this was not necessarily the normal way the process worked, for the vast majority of bodies were exhumed, and not freshly killed. The book shows that doctors in those days had to resort to unlawful means to increase their knowledge of human anatomy. That still doesn't make what happened right, but the book also shows that the doctors were never charged with a crime, only those who provided them the bodies. It was just another aspect of the working of the class system in old England.

Sarah Wise enters a Dickensian London underground as she follows the true historical tale of body-snatchers in 1830s on trial for the murder (burking) of an Italian boy in order to sell his body to surgeon-dissecters. Charles Dickens himself is quoted often and appropriately as the tale winds through the back alleys of rubbish strewn pre-Victorian London, taking in pubs, meat markets, and medical practices along the way. The author uses the historical facts of the case to explore many of these aspects of this fascinating time and place. Only very occasionally does the book veer off too far from the case at hand. Otherwise the author keeps a tight focus on the material and more than keeps the reader's interest through all the spooky twists and turn. A very nice job.

The Italian Boy is the story of a little-known 19th century murder. The story begins in 1832 with the delivery of the body of an "Italian boy" to one of London's many private medical schools. In the 19th century, medical schools acquired subjects to practice on from London's many pauper's graves; the body of the body was fresher than one might expect, and lacked burial marks.

What followed was an investigation into the murder of an Italian boy, never fully identified by contemporaries. The search for the boy's murderers led to the infamous trial of his suppliers--John Bishop, James May, and Thomas Williams. The murders echoed those of Burke and Hare, two famous resurrectionists after whom the term "burking" was coined.

I liked this book, sort of. Although the author goes off on tangents (she talks in general about poverty in the early 19th century, Italian politics, and the Smithfield meat market, which seemed to me to be "filler" for the book, almost like a newspaper article extended to a 300-page book), she presents to her reader a compelling murder story with a bit of a mystery--who was the Italian boy that Bishp, May and Williams supplied to Kings College? On the other hand, I felt as though the author failed to draw any conclusions about the murder, murderers, or to connect various pieces of the puzzle. The book is accompanied by nice engraving reproductions.