New searchable prison records have been released online, revealing a trio of bodysnatchers from Edinburgh and more.
The geneology website ScotlandsPeople has opened up searchable indexes to the registers of Edinburgh’s Bridewell and Calton Prisons and Largs Prison in North Ayrshire.
The new records collectively cover a period of over 50 years from 1798 to 1853 with Bridewell the largest spanning 40 years and 40,000 entries.
Among those records is the tale of three people convicted of bodysnatching near Edinburgh in 1829.
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The trio, including a John Kerr, dug up the corpses of two adults and a young child from Lasswade Kirkyard around nine miles south of the capital.
Kerr was found guilty of “violating the sepulchres of the dead” and sentenced to ninth months hard labour. Two of his fellow “resurrection men” served six months but others involved in the crime were not prosecuted.
Archivist Stefanie Dempster from National Records of Scotland which runs the ScotlandsPeople website said: “These remarkable records are a fantastic resource for social researchers and those researching their own family tree.
“Alongside many petty thefts and incidents of drunken behaviour, we see crimes that were of their time, like snatching corpses from graveyards to sell to surgeons teaching anatomy.
“The harsh lives lived by many are clear from cases like that of a woman who had requested the magistrate send her to prison with the records stating the reason ‘being lame’.
“These records offer a glimpse at the grittier side of life in early 19th century Scotland.”
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