Thursday 7th of September 2023 marks exactly 35 years to the day since we purchased at auction a small calling-card case made out of the skin of the notorious "body-snatcher" William Burke.
We bought this macabre relic at a Phillips' Auction House in the West Midlands in 1988, for £1,050. We were bidding over the phone at the time, outbidding Edinburgh's Surgeons' Hall Museum in the process. Our curious acquisition was featured on BBC TV News, BBC Radio Scotland and appeared in a number of national newspapers, including The Sun which showed its customary flair for a good headline with: '£1000 Bid for Bit of a Burke'.
William Burke and William Hare, two Irish labourers, committed 16 murders in Edinburgh in 1827 and 1828, selling the corpses to Dr. Robert Knox at his private Medical School for use in his dissection classes. Burke and Hare were eventually caught red-handed in possession of a freshly-"prepared" body awaiting delivery, and a trial promptly scheduled for Christmas Eve 1828. William Hare turned informer in exchange for immunity and walked free while William Burke was sentenced to be publically hanged.
Edinburgh's residents were horrified that William Hare was allowed to walk free and the city mob wanted to lynch him, so for his own safety Hare was placed inside the secure surrounds of the Calton Jail and taken out of Edinburgh overnight on a mail coach. He was taken down to the border between Scotland and England and let out there. His subsequent fate is unknown, though lurid myths abound: reputed grave-sites can be found scattered throughout the British Isles.
William Burke was publically hanged in the Edinburgh's High Street on the 28th January 1829. An estimated crowd of 25,000 people gathered for the execution, some sleeping overnight the night before to makes sure they had a good viewing spot for the hanging. Apparently when Burke's body dropped there was an almighty cheer which was heard three miles away in the port of Leith.
After his public execution, Burke's corpse was transported to the University of Edinburgh Medical School, with greater fanfare than his many victims, and dissected by Dr Alexander Monro (Tertius). At the dissection, some of Burke's skin was stolen from the anatomy table by students and grisly souvenirs were made out of his skin. Our calling card case was made from skin taken from the back of Burke's left hand. The skin was treated, tanned and finely decorated with gold tooling, which perhaps makes the relic more disturbing.
The calling card case was owned for many years by a Dr Hobbs, and was handed down to the family of Piercy Hughes, a descendent of one of the surgeons involved in William Burke's dissection. In 1997, the calling card case was sent to London to feature in the Wellcome Trust's exhibition Dr Death: Medicine at the End of Life. It also featured on Channel 4's Four Rooms (2012) and the BBC's Antiques Roadshow (2006), where it was described as "priceless".
We used to carry the calling card case around on our walking tours, but decided that we needed to protect it from wear and tear and loaned it to the Police Information Centre in Edinburgh's Royal Mile. This was a perfect central location for visitors to view Burke's skin, but when the Police Information Centre closed we decided its travels were done, and The William Burke Museum (the smallest museum in the world) was born.
So today our grisly relic is displayed in an ornate black box on the counter of our shop in Edinburgh's West Bow. Every year, we now welcome thousands of visitors from all over the world to the William Burke Museum. Visitors love the idea of our shop housing the smallest museum in the world. Come to see it if you dare. We're open 12 - 6pm Mondays and Tuesdays and 12 - 8pm the rest of the week.