William Burke and his accomplice William Hare were two resurrectionists, men who steal bodies from grave sites and trade them to doctors for money. Between November 1827 and October 1828, Burke and Hare killed 16 people in Edinburgh, United Kingdom. These bodies were being sold to surgeon Dr. Robert Knox. Hare avoided execution by "informing against William Burke." (BRANCH) Burke was sentenced to death and anatomized. His skeleton was then displayed at the Anatomy Museum at Edinburgh Medical School, where it still is today. (BRANCH) These series of murders where the first killings to spread and gain public attention; this brought awareness for the need of bodies for studies and education. With the widespread of the Burke and Hare murders, the people and the government officials were more drawn into the fact of how unethical the act of body snatching is. Due to this and the loose laws on resurrectionists ,it ultimately led to the Anatomy Act of 1832. You could say the murders influenced Robert Stevenson because of the impact William Hare and William Burke had on this social issue.

Works Cited

Branch. “Trial of William Burke | BRANCH.” Branch Collective, Branch, www.branchcollective.org/?ps_event=trial-of-william-burke. Accessed 6 Dec. 2021.