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Bourgeois Bodies— Dead Criminals
England c. 1750-1830
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 April 2024
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In 1795 Jeremiah Aversham went to execution bearing a flower in his mouth. “He was afterwards hung in chains on Wimbledon common, and for several months,” it was reported, “thousands of the London populace passed their Sundays near the spot as if consecrated by the remains of a hero.” From the perspective of bourgeois morality this was an intolerable scandal. The display of the dead body had become one of those suspicious or ill-defined areas of life that were treated as indecent or marginalised as offensive. The general rearrangement of values in the society transformed the body into an object of aversion as opposed to representation. The change of attitude made it impossible to continue inscribing the bodies of criminals with the degradation of public exposure.
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- Copyright © 1988 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)
References
1 G. Barrow, (ed.), Celebrated Trials (London, 1825), vol. 5, p. 368.
2 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish (Penguin ed., 1977), p. 16.
3 The Times, 15th March, 1790.
4 Ibid, 23rd March, 1790. For other examples see the Gentleman's Magazine, April, 1770 and April, 1780.
5 Philippe Aries, The Hour of our Death (Penguin ed., 1983), pp. 32-40.
6 Alfred Marks, Tyburn Tree: its History and Annals (London, n.d.), pp. 50-1
7 The Times, 9th May, 1860.
8 Barrow, op. cit., vol. 4, p. 172.
9 James Stephens, A History of the Criminal Law of England (London, 1883), vol. 3, p. 105.
10 Leon Radzinowicz, A History of English Criminal Law (London, 1948), vol. 1, p. 219.
11 Albert Hartshorne, Hanging in Chains (London, 1891), pp. 108-9.
12 Ibid, pp. 82 and 91.
13 Clare Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual in Early Modern England (London, 1984), p. 139.
14 Aries, op. cit., pp. 62-71. J. Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages (Penguin ed., 1955), p. 150.
15 G. A. Walker, Gatherings from the Graveyards (London, 1839), p. 142. See also the Public Advertiser, 21st April, 1774.
16 Philantropist, The Living and the Dead: a Letter to the People of England on the State of their Churchyards (London, 1841), p. 41.
17 Aries, op. cit., p. 61.
18 The Times, 13th June, 1788.
19 Thomas Lewis, Seasonable Considerations on the Indecent and Dangerous Custom of Burying in Churches and Churchyards (London, 1721), p. 61.
20 Ibid, p. 64.
21 Notes and queries, Jan-June, 1873, 4th series, vol. 11, p. 63. There is no reference to the unsanitary nature of the gibbet in the letter authorising this removal. See Public Record Office, Kew, H.O.13/60, 11th August, 1832.
22 Sir George Clark, A History of the Royal College of Physicians of London (Oxford, 1964), p. 122.
23 David Rumbelow, The Triple Tree (London, 1982), p. 179. See also R. Latham and W. Matthews (eds.) The Diary of Samuel Pepys (London, 1971), vol. iv, p. 59. "About 11 a-clock Commissioner Pett and I walked to Chyrurgeons hall (we being all invited thither and promised to dine there), where we were led into the Theatre; and by the by came the Reader, Dr. Teame, with the Maister and Company, in a very handsome manner."
24 The Times, 20th January, 1786.
25 The Scotsman, 31 st January, 1829.
26 Parliamentary History, vol. 26, 1786-88, p. 197. This feeling was not entirely unanimous. The Times of the 10th January, 1787, noted in surprise that two criminals "sent to an eminent anatomist, a few days previous to their ignominious exit to offer their bodies after execution for a certain sum."
27 Francis Grose, A Provincial Glossary with a Collection of Local Proverbs and Popular Superstitions (London, 1787), p. 59; John Symonds Udal, Dorsetshire Folklore (Hertford, 1922), p. 185; Robert Hunt, Popular Romances of the West of England (London, 1903 ed.), p. 379.
28 Aries, op. cit., p. 356.
29 See William Heckscher, Rembrandt's Anatomy of Dr. Nicholaas Tulp: an Iconological Study (New York, 1958), pp. 103-5 for some further comments on this print. Peter Linebaugh's "The Tyburn riot against the surgeons" in Hay, Linebaugh, Rule, Thompson, and Winslow, Albion's Fatal Tree (Penguin ed., 1977) does not allude to this aspect of the popular perception of the surgeons.
30 Edward Westermarck, The Origin and Development of Moral Ideas (London, 1908), vol. 2, p. 256. See also Hunt, op. cit., p. 293.
31 The Times, 17th November, 1786.
32 P.R.O., Kew, H.O. 42/118, 29th December, 1811.
33 Morning Chronicle, 1st January, 1812.
34 William Eden, Principles of Penal Law (London, 1771), p. 80.
35 Morning Herald, 11th August, 1832.
36 The Times, 17th June, 1785. A year later the same newspaper complained, "How indecent, how shocking to the delicate mind is the custom of burying in paved churchyards! How horrid to see the body of a fellow creature pounded into the earth, and rammed down as if it was the wish of the surviving relatives that it should never rise again." 8th May, 1786.
37 T. B. Howell, A Complete Collection of State Trials (London, 1816-26), vol. 18, p. 351.
38 J. Bentham, Works (Edinburgh, 1838-43), vol. 1, p. 443. See also Parliamentary Debates, vol. 28, 1814, appendix, pp. clxxix-clxxxviii. In the debate on Samuel Romilly's Bill to alter the punishment for high treason, Willian Smith supported it "not from compassion for the criminals, but for the public."
39 Ann Radcliffe, The mysteries of Udolpho (London, 1931 ed.), vol. 2, p. 18.
40 Regina Maria Roche, Clermont (London, 1968 ed.), p. 291.
41 See James Lacan, "Aggressivity in psychoanalysis" in Écrits: A Selection (London, 1977), pp. 8-29, for a discussion of this phenomenon.
42 The Scotsman, 31st January, 1829.
43 New Monthly Magazine, vol. 105, 1855, p. 376.
44 Report of Select Committee on Anatomy, 1828, (588), vii, p. 11.
45 The Lancet, 27th March, 1830.
46 John Flint South, Memorials (Sussex, 1970 ed.), pp. 93-6.
47 Acts of Parliament, Great Britain, 2 & 3 William IV, c. 75. See also Select Committee, op. cit. p. 9.
48 Morning Herald, 17th August, 1832.
49 Gittings, op. cit., pp. 34-5; p. 149. Aries, op. cit., p. 331.
50 Matthew G. Lewis, The Monk (London, 1907 ed.), p. 323.
51 Radcliffe, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 334.
52 Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend (London, 1952 ed.), pp. 3-5.
53 Ibid, p. 25.
54 John Donne, Deaths Duell, or, A consolation to the soul against the dying life and the living death of the body (London, 1632), p. 21. Also "Hamlet. A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of a fish that hath fed of that worm./ King. What dost thou mean by this?/ Hamlet. Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar." William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Penguin ed., 1980), p. 158.
55 Howell, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 1084-6.
56 Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage (London, 1977), pp. 225-9.
57 Pepys, op. cit., vol. ix, p. 475.
58 J. Boswell, For the Defence, 1769-1774 (London, 1959), p. 281.
59 Boswell's Column (London, 1951), p. 345.
60 James Boswell, In Search of a Wife, 1766-1769 (London, 1957), p. 151.
61 Samuel Richardson, Clarissa (London, 1932 ed.), vol. iii, p. 190.
62 Ibid, vol. iv, pp. 347 & 390.
63 Ibid, p. 402.
64 Ibid, p. 247. The novelty value of the emblems was represented by the considerable interest in them at Clarissa's funeral. See pp. 396 & 409.
65 Walker, op. cit., pp. 157-8. William Godwin, An Essay on Sepulchres (London, 1809), pp. 17-18, wrote of a similar attachment to the burial place of a loved one.
66 Henry Fielding, An Enquiry into the Causes of the Late Increase of Robbers (London, 1751), pp. 189-90.
67 Heckscher, op. cit., p. 169.
68 Susan Okin, Women in Western Political Thought (London, 1980), pp. 106-139.
69 Londa Schiebinger, "Skeletons in the closet: the first illustrations of the female skeleton in female anatomy" in The making of the modern body, ed. Catherine Gallagher and Thomas Laqueur (Berkeley, 1987), p. 48. See also Thomas Laqueur, "Orgasm, generation, and the politics of reproductive biology" pp. 1-41.
70 Ibid, p. 58-9.
71 Priscella Wakefield, Reflections on the Present Condition of the Female Sex (London, 1797), pp. 8-9.
72 Thomas Gisbome, An Enquiry into the Duties of the Female Sex (London, 1797), p. 23.
73 Henry Mackenzie, The Man of Feeling (London, 1967), p. 35.
74 Anna Barbauld, The Correspondence of Samuel Richardson (London, 1804), vol. iv, p. 30.
75 Ibid, pp. 31-2.
76 The Times, 20th January, 1786.
77 The Scotsman, 31st January, 1829.
78 Parliamentary Debates, new series, vol. 9, pp. 417-8.
79 Morning Herald, 14th August, 1832.
80 Parliamentary Debates, vol. 14, 1809, pp. 556-7.
81 Ibid, third series, vol. 22, 1834, p. 157.
82 Ibid, vol. 9, 1831, p. 303.
83 The Lancet, 27th March, 1830.
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