'Deviant Burial'

"It is believed to be a 'deviant burial', where people considered the 'dangerous dead', such as vampires, were interred to prevent them rising from their graves to plague the living. "

For the full story in "The Telegraph" [ Link ]

Sarah Watling

St Michael-Swanton Abbot
© Godric Godricson

You may remember the story of Sarah Watling earlier in this blog dating to 1833. Sarah's body was unlawfully removed from the graveyard as part of a 'body snatching' raid.  I have always been surprised at the idea of stealing a body which seems a noisy and difficult business. However, when I visited this graveyard the idea of body snatching became more understandable as a process. The graveyard is remote and away from prying eyes and its easy to trudge across the fields or take a cart along the lane.  I'm sure that Sarah Watling was the tip of the ice berg and that other bodies were removed from their graves ahead of time.

Resurrectionists in Norwich - 1823

"Owing to the frequency with which a number of trunks, measuring 28 inches long, 13 inches wide, and 12 inches deep, had been sent from the Rampant Horse Inn, Norwich, by the Telegraph coach to London, suspicion was aroused at the coach office, and directions were given that the porter bringing the next be detained and the parcel examined.  This was done on the 15th, when it was found that the package contained the dead and naked body of an old man.  The Rev. George Carter, vicar of Lakenham, identified the body as that of a man named Brundall whom he had buried a few days previously.  Brundall’s grave was examined and it was found that only the coffin and the shroud remained.  From information given by the porter, two men named Collins and Crowe were apprehended and committed for trial at the Quarter Sessions.  On July 15th they were tried, found guilty, and sentenced to three months’ imprisonment, and to pay a fine of £50"

Title: Norfolk Annals  A Chronological Record of Remarkable Events in the Nineteeth Century, Vol. 1     Author: Charles Mackie