King’s College London

Entering King’s College with Carlo’s body [1].

With the body of Carlo in a bag Bishop and Williams now attempted to sell the ‘rare fresh subject’ by striking a bargain deal King’s College. They entered King’s through the eastern end of Somerset House in the Strand. However, the freshness of the body aroused the suspicions of King’s anatomist Richard Partridge a demonstrator at the Anatomy Department of King’s.

Partridge remarked:

‘That the body had been offered to him for sale, but the appearance of it was so unusually fresh and marks of violence being perceptible both on the chest and forehead, he declined the purchase, and deemed it right to inform the police of the circumstance. The appearance of the subject induced him to believe that it had not died a natural death.’[2]

During the court proceedings Partridge went onto say:

‘I observed the swollen state of the face, the blood-shot eyes, the freshness of the body, the rigidity of the limbs, and a cut over the left temple; the lips were swollen - no other circumstance attracted my attention. the external appearances were, the muscles were still flat, and rigid, though not so much so as the day before; there was a wound on the temple, which did not injure the bone - that was the only appearance of external injury; on the scull, beneath the scalp or bone there was some blood effused; on opening the body the whole contents of the abdomen and chest were found to be in a healthy condition - the stomach was full; before the chest and abdomen were examined, the scull was taken off, and the brain examined - that was perfectly healthy, as well as the spinal part; in cutting down to remove the bone which conceals the spinal part at the back of the neck, we found a quantity of coagulated blood within the muscles, and on removing the back part of the body canal, some coagulated blood was found laying in the cavity opposite the blood found in the muscles of the neck - there was blood uncoagulated within the rest of the spinal canal; the spinal marrow appeared perfectly healthy - these are all the remarkable appearances; I think these internal marks of violence were sufficient to produce death - I believe violence had been exerted to have the effect on the spinal cord.’[3]

It was clear that the body of Carlo had never been buried, had never been laid out in preparation for burial – and yet it had been delivered to King’s anatomy department as a subject for medical students to dissect. Partridge told the three men that he would return with the funds for the body, only to return twenty-minutes later with the police.[4]

Soon Police Superintendent Joseph Thomas and several other officers from Division F, Covent Garden’s branch of the Metropolitan Police had arrived. As Bishop, Williams, and May were questioned as to how they became possessed of the body some of Partridge’s students had also entered the Anatomy Theatre. May said it belonged to Bishop and they had got it from Guy’s Hospital. As the prisoners were to be taken into custody May and Bishop retreated to the boiling room and declared they would not surrender and in fact evinced a disposition to put Broderick (police officer F. Division) in the copper if he did not retire. At this moment, the whole of the students, about 30 in number, declared that they would assist the officers and after a severe struggle the four prisoners were secured and conveyed to Bow-street.[5]

The post-mortem confirmed that Carlo ‘had come to his death by violence.’[6] Professor of Anatomy, Herbert Mayo, in his account of the attempted sale of the Italian Boy to King’s ‘that the boy was intentionally destroyed (…) that ten days ago, an offer was made by a resurrection man to us the body of a boy, which was described as remarkably fresh.’ Mayo asserted with great vigour that ‘this body was not bought by King’s College.’ Although the case was unsurprising given ‘that from time-to-time murder is perpetuated in London for the value of the body of the victim.’ The solution to avoiding such ‘horrors’, Mayo proposed, was for the government to legislate for the bodies of those who die in hospitals and workhouses to be donated to anatomical departments - those without friends and family.[7]

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