Thomas Vaughan, body snatcher
Body snatching refers to the profitable trade during the 19th. century of digging-up the recently buried dead from their graves and selling the bodies to medical schools, whose only legal source of corpses were the bodies of hanged criminals.
In the early 1800's corpses had been in high demand for use as test subjects on medical procedures. Large rewards were given by London surgeons in exchange for the bodies, fresh corpses and bodies of children fetched the highest prices.
The son of a vicar of St Nicholas church in Gt. Yarmouth, Sir Astley Cooper (1768-1841), who was also the renowned surgeon to George IV, William IV and Queen Victoria, employed body snatchers to undertake the gruesome work in his fathers graveyard.
Cooper employed a former stonemason from London, Thomas Vaughan (alias Smith) who with his associates, said to be William and Robert Baker of Beccles, rented a room opposite the west end of St. Nicholas church, in Row 6, known later as 'Snatchbody Row'. Vaughan, it was said, had planned to steal the bodies over a period of 19 days.
Once he had started Vaughan would have had to work quickly to avoid being caught. His method was to hastily dig away the soil from the head of a grave, force open the coffin with a crowbar and drag out the corpse by the shoulders. The body was then stripped and the clothes and shroud bundled back into the coffin before the earth was filled back in. Each body was put in a sack, then carried to the house in Row 6 where it was concealed in sawdust behind locked doors. Within a short time, these bodies were then packaged into crates which, it was claimed, were labelled 'Glass: Handle with Care', then stacked on carts and taken to the railway station to be transported to London, via Norwich. The complete consignment included two children, one young woman and a 67 year old man.
The final destination was reported to be a room close to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, from where surgeons would choose a corpse. Vaughan would be paid 10 to 12 guineas for each body.
Vaughan was Cooper's most prolific body snatcher, exhuming at least 10 bodies from St. Nicholas graveyard in 1827. Historians think more than 20 bodies were exhumed from the graveyard in that year which would indicate that others, apart from Vaughan and his accomplices were also operating in the area.
In 1827 high fences were put up around St. Nicholas’ churchyard to prevent a repetition of the crime.
Although it aroused terror in many hearts, the courts regarded body snatching only as a misdemeanour meriting a short prison sentence and when Vaughan was eventually caught he received only six months in jail for his crimes. His costs were said to have been paid by the surgeons, and his wife cared for while he was behind bars. No mention was made of his accomplices.
Vaughan never learned his lesson for he returned to bodysnatching under the alias Thomas Goslin. He was found in possession of clothes he had taken from the dead body of Eliza Margaret Hanger, an 18 year old girl he had dug up from Stoke Damerel church in Plymouth. This ‘theft’ raised his crime to the level of felony and at the age of 40 he was transported to Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania), Australia, departing aboard the vessel Argyle on 5th. March 1831 and arriving on 3rd. August 1831. He was sentenced to 7 years.
In 2011, a blue plaque, commissioned by the Great Yarmouth Local History and Archaeological Society was unveiled on the gates of St. Nicholas church.
Thomas Vaughan, body snatcher
Body snatching refers to the profitable trade during the 19th. century of digging-up the recently buried dead from their graves and selling the bodies to medical schools, whose only legal source of corpses were the bodies of hanged criminals.
In the early 1800's corpses had been in high demand for use as test subjects on medical procedures. Large rewards were given by London surgeons in exchange for the bodies, fresh corpses and bodies of children fetched the highest prices.
The son of a vicar of St Nicholas church in Gt. Yarmouth, Sir Astley Cooper (1768-1841), who was also the renowned surgeon to George IV, William IV and Queen Victoria, employed body snatchers to undertake the gruesome work in his fathers graveyard.
Cooper employed a former stonemason from London, Thomas Vaughan (alias Smith) who with his associates, said to be William and Robert Baker of Beccles, rented a room opposite the west end of St. Nicholas church, in Row 6, known later as 'Snatchbody Row'. Vaughan, it was said, had planned to steal the bodies over a period of 19 days.
Once he had started Vaughan would have had to work quickly to avoid being caught. His method was to hastily dig away the soil from the head of a grave, force open the coffin with a crowbar and drag out the corpse by the shoulders. The body was then stripped and the clothes and shroud bundled back into the coffin before the earth was filled back in. Each body was put in a sack, then carried to the house in Row 6 where it was concealed in sawdust behind locked doors. Within a short time, these bodies were then packaged into crates which, it was claimed, were labelled 'Glass: Handle with Care', then stacked on carts and taken to the railway station to be transported to London, via Norwich. The complete consignment included two children, one young woman and a 67 year old man.
The final destination was reported to be a room close to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, from where surgeons would choose a corpse. Vaughan would be paid 10 to 12 guineas for each body.
Vaughan was Cooper's most prolific body snatcher, exhuming at least 10 bodies from St. Nicholas graveyard in 1827. Historians think more than 20 bodies were exhumed from the graveyard in that year which would indicate that others, apart from Vaughan and his accomplices were also operating in the area.
In 1827 high fences were put up around St. Nicholas’ churchyard to prevent a repetition of the crime.
Although it aroused terror in many hearts, the courts regarded body snatching only as a misdemeanour meriting a short prison sentence and when Vaughan was eventually caught he received only six months in jail for his crimes. His costs were said to have been paid by the surgeons, and his wife cared for while he was behind bars. No mention was made of his accomplices.
Vaughan never learned his lesson for he returned to bodysnatching under the alias Thomas Goslin. He was found in possession of clothes he had taken from the dead body of Eliza Margaret Hanger, an 18 year old girl he had dug up from Stoke Damerel church in Plymouth. This ‘theft’ raised his crime to the level of felony and at the age of 40 he was transported to Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania), Australia, departing aboard the vessel Argyle on 5th. March 1831 and arriving on 3rd. August 1831. He was sentenced to 7 years.
In 2011, a blue plaque, commissioned by the Great Yarmouth Local History and Archaeological Society was unveiled on the gates of St. Nicholas church.