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The Burke and Hare murders were a series of sixteen murders committed over a period of about ten months in 1828 in Edinburgh, Scotland. They were undertaken by William Burke and William Hare, who sold the corpses to Robert Knox for dissection at his anatomy lectures.
In the late 1820s the infamous duo, Burke and Hare, ran a thriving trade in supplying bodies to Edinburgh's College of Medicine. The two men were not body snatchers in the conventional sense. Instead of robbing graves they resorted to serial murder.
The murders committed by Burke and Hare in Edinburgh inspired others to murder for profit. The most notable case was committed by a gang of men who became known as the London Burkers.
Nov 2, 2015 · William Burke and William Hare are synonymous with Edinburgh, and the West Port murders, as they became known, have gone down in history as the most notorious murders to take place in 19 th century Scotland. Burke and Hare were responsible for the deaths of 16 people in Edinburgh.
The Burke and Hare murders - plus those of a gang called the ‘London Burkers’ - galvanised Parliament into finally doing something about the lack of bodies available to the medical profession for dissection.
Jul 9, 2024 · By Gavin Whitehead | Edited By Cara Johnson. Published July 9, 2024. Updated July 10, 2024. During an 11-month period between 1827 and 1828, William Burke and William Hare murdered at least 16 people in Edinburgh and sold their corpses to a surgeon at a local anatomy school in a macabre money-making scheme.
Burke and Hare were exposed when neighbors and police discovered their murder of a local woman on October 31, 1828. Hare turned king’s evidence and, along with his wife, Margaret Hare, testified against Burke and his wife, Helen Burke.
