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n On Sunday December 4th 1831, threenwritten ‘confessions’ by Bishop and Williams were given over to the Newgatensheriff. Bishop began by claiming that the murdered boy was not an Italian atnall, but the child of a Lincolnshire drover. This is odd in itself. No mentionnof this Lincolnshire child had been made before, and the only reference in thenwhole case is that a Lincolnshire couple had lost a child and they hadnbeen shown Ferrier’s body, on the off chance that it may have been that ofntheir missing son. It was not – neither the colour of the hair nor that of theneyes of the body presented to them was the same as those of their lost child.nFerrier’s body had also been positively identified by a number of people whonhad known him in life, and several other witnesses had described seeing the boynin a cap with a cage of mice (so don’t believe what you read on Wikipedia – thenentry for ‘London Burkers’ is full of mistakes, as is the one on Burkenand Hare, but I’m not going to be the one who puts it right).
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| Penny Broadsheet |
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nBishop admittedntaking the boy (who was, let’s not forget, about sixteen year old), from thenBell pub in Smithfield, with Williams, at about half-past ten on the night ofnNovember 3rd 1831. They had gone to No 3, Nova Scotia Gardens, andnBishop had told him to wait in the privy until his wife and children had gonento bed. Ferrier had then been taken indoors and given bread and cheese, and ancup of rum containing laudanum, which he drank in two gulps, together with anlittle beer. He fell asleep almost immediately, Bishop took him from the chairnand laid him on his side on the floor, then he and Williams had gone to thenFeathers pub, where they drank gin and beer, and returned twenty minutes later.nBishop took the sleeping boy and carried him outside, where Williams tied hisnlegs and feet, and together they lowered him into the well.
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| Drowning in the well |
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nHe kicked andnstruggled, and there were bubbles, so Bishop and Williams tied the rope to anpaling and left him, walking to Shoreditch and back for about three quarters ofnan hour. They stripped the body, burying the clothes in the garden, took itninto the washhouse and covered it up with a bag, then went for coffee beforenreturning, doubling the corpse up and putting it into a box, cording the top tonprevent any prying. They went back for another coffee before returning to No 3nand going to bed. At about ten the following morning they rose, had breakfastnwith their families before going to the Fortune of War, where they drank rumnand ate some more until May came in. Bishop was wearing a new smock frock andnMay liked it so much, he wanted one too, so Bishop took him to Field Lane,nwhere May bought one, and then on to West Street, to buy some breeches. May,nalready drunk, argued with the woman about the price but Bishop sent out fornmore rum and they drank, calmed down and cleared the air.
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| Fortune of War pub (demolished 1910) |
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nBishop and May wentnback to the Fortune of War and rejoined Williams and after more drink, Bishopnand Williams went to Mr Tuson’s in Windmill Street, to whom they offered an‘subject’, but Tuson told them he had bought one the day previous, so they wentnon to Mr Carpue’s in Dean Street, who agreed to buy a ‘fresh one’ for eightnguineas. They returned to May in the Fortune of War, and Bishop asked hisnadvice about the selling of ‘subjects’, May telling him he could get a betternprice elsewhere. Bishop replied that anything he could get above nine guineasnwould be his to keep, and so more drink followed. They went out and hired anyellow chariot and went back to Bishop’s house, where May examined the body andnadvised them to remove the teeth, which could be sold separately, so Williamsnwent for a chisel and a bradawl, which May used to break out the teeth.
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nWhennthis had been done, they put the body back in its box and carried it out to thenyellow chariot, loaded it up and took it to Guy’s Hospital. Mr Davis there saidnhe had already bought two ‘subjects’ from May the day before and did not neednanother. Bishop asked Mr Davis if he could leave the box at Guy’s until thenfollowing morning, which was agreed to, so Bishop and May went back to thenchariot and Williams, paid the coachman and went for a drink. They went back tonthe Fortune of War, had a drink and then went up to Golden Lane for a drink.nYou can say what you like about Georgian body snatchers but you cannot accusenthem of hanging back with the old elbow lifting.
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| Broadsheet – An Italian Boy |
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nOn the morning of November 5th,nBishop and Williams nipped down to the Fortune of War for a pint, and hirednJames Shields, the porter, who Bishop asked to go to St Bart’s Hospital tonbring an empty hamper but he refused so Bishop went himself and came back, whennhe found time for a swift one before going to Guy’s, meeting May there andnwhere they again offered the ‘subject’ to Mr Davis, who again refused it. Theynwet their whistles in a nearby pub and went on to King’s College, and we havenheard what happened from then on. He added that as far as he knew, May was ofnthe opinion that the body had been taken from a grave and had no idea thatnBishop and Williams had ‘burked’ the boy.
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nIn concluding this confession, Bishopnreturned to his obsessive effort to distance himself from the murder of CarlonFerrier; he didn’t know an Italian boy and certainly hadn’t killed one and whennit came to white mice, his children had once kept a couple but the cat had gotnthem. He had made a nice, flat cage for them (absolutely not a revolving one ofnthe sort that, say, an Italian street beggar might display his mice in), but henthought the cat had killed them because he had seen the cat kill them. Henrambles on about the mice that his kids didn’t have, nor had they had any fornover six months.
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nBishop seems to have got it into his head that if he couldnshow that he hadn’t killed Carlo, he might yet get off, which is odd because henfreely admitted other murders. What he didn’t seem to realise was that MrnCorder, the vestry-clerk at the Old Bailey, had entered two counts against thenaccused – one on the murder of Carlo Ferrier and another on the murder of annunknown boy, so even if Bishop’s plan had worked, the count against the unknownnboy was there, ready and waiting for him. John Bishop was not, one has to say,nthe sharpest knife in the drawer.
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| Trial report – Proceedings of the Old Bailey |
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nBishop then wrote a second confession, in which hendescribes how he and Williams discovered Frances Pigburn, a widow, sitting on andoorstep at about midnight on October 9th as they were coming homenfrom the pub. She had a child, of maybe four or five, with her and said thatnthey had nowhere to stay as the landlord had turned her out. Bishop andnWilliams took her back to No 3, where they lit a fire, and got stuck in to thenale with rum chasers, until the woman and child fell asleep on a pile of dirtynlinen. At six in the morning, Bishop woke them up and showed them out, tellingnFrances to meet him at the London Apprentice ale-house later (presumably hendidn’t like the idea of Mrs Bishop coming downstairs and finding a hung-overnwoman and her brat asleep on her laundry pile. There is a good reason whyncockney rhyming slang for ‘wife’ is ‘trouble and strife’). Theynmet her, sans child, at one o’clock, had a swift glass of two, andnarranged to meet her again that night, (the child was not seen again. Itsnmother said that she had left it with a person with whom she had left some ofnher belongings before her landlord had taken the rest.
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nBishop and Williams wentnoff and bought rum and laudanum in different places, and at ten that night,nthey were back in the London Apprentice, where they had three pints apiece.nThey set off back to Nova Scotia Gardens but it came on raining heavily so theynsheltered in a doorway for half an hour, before getting back but went into thenthen empty No 2, where they gave her the rum and laudanum mixture. She dranknthe lot in two or three draughts and after ten minutes she fell asleep, sonBishop and Williams … went to the pub. A couple of sneck-lifters later, theynwent back, took the cloak off Frances, tied her feet together and dropped hernhead-first into the well, where she struggled and thrashed about for a whilenand blew a few bubbles, so Bishop and Williams went for a stroll. Afternhalf-an-hour they came back, pulled the corpse out of the well, cut off hernclothes and shoved them down the privy, took the body into the wash-house andnboxed it up, cording the lid to prevent anyone casually looking into the box.
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nThey went off to Eagle Street at about four or five in the morning, where theynwoke James Shields from his sleep … and went to the pub. After a couple ofnrounds of gin, they went back to Nova Scotia gardens and collected the box.nWilliams told his wife to get up, get dressed and fetch an empty hat box, whichnhe tied up like the big box. Shields and Mrs Williams then walked down thenstreet together, with Bishop and Williams following on the other side of thenstreet, until they got to St Thomas’s Hospital, where Bishop asked if anyone ‘wantednanything’. The porter said they did, but not until tomorrow so, leavingnWillams and his wife, and Shields in the pub (where else?), he went off tonGrainger’s Anatomy school, where he sold the body for eight guineas. He wentnback to the pub, got a round in, paid Shields ten shillings for carrying thenbox and then went to the Flowerpot, Bishopsgate, where they cut the dust andnthen went home.
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| The Trial, Sentence and Confession pamphlet |
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nA couple of weeks later, coming home from a night’s boozing,nthey found a boy, ten or eleven years of age, who gave his name as Cunningham,nsleeping rough under the pig-boards at the Smithfield pig market, so they tooknhim home and gave him warm, sweetened beer and the tried and tested rum andnlaudanum mixture. Whilst this was doing its work, Bishop and Williams went offnto oil their necks before going back and dangling the boy down the well. On thennext day, they hired a porter to carry the box to St Bart’s, where they soldnthe ‘specimen’ for eight guineas. May was not involved in either of these lastntwo murders, Bishop wrote. He knew May was a grave robber, and he was a gravenrobber himself, and had been for five or six years, but these were the onlynmurders he had committed. May thought that he had dug up these bodies. Theynmight be grave robbers but it’s not like they are monsters or anything weird,nright?
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nHe was about the give details of a fourth murder, that of a ‘black man’nwhen he was interrupted by Rev Dr Cotton, the Ordinary, and could not beninduced to continue later. The third confession was by Williams, who wasnpresent in the same room and who had agreed with Bishop’s version of things asnhe heard them, although he said, in effect, he had never killed anyone before,nnever been a grave robber before, hadn’t met May before and that May wasninnocent of any murders. You get the feeling from reading Williams’s words thatnif you had shown him his own face in a mirror, he would have denied knowing thenman he saw there.
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| The Horrid Murder pamphlet |
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nOn the strength of these confessions, James May’s deathnsentence was respited ‘during his Majesty’s most gracious pleasure’, andnas a result the sentence was commuted to transportation to Australia for life.nWhen the news was read to him, May collapsed onto the floor, fitting andnconvulsing, his body shaking and writhing, his eyes fixed and his face deathlynwhite. It was thought he might die, but eventually he roused, still shaking andnunable to speak properly, until at length he revived enough to say he was anchanged man and would live a penitent life from then on. Williams spent much ofnhis remaining time on earth talking to his gaolers – he couldn’t sleep much,nfor some reason – and told them how, when he was first married, his wife warnednhim about the ‘snatchers’. He had had no idea about his father-in-law’snprofession prior to his wedding (let’s be honest, it might have put him offnsomewhat, so it’s no surprise that nobody bothered to mention it earlier), butnwhen he lost his job, Bishop broached the subject and he was initiated into thenfamily business. He didn’t like the difficulties and dangers of the work, sonone day he had a word in Bishop’s ear and proposed a new business model, a ‘…nrecollection of what Burke had done at Edinburgh,’ a development which hadnultimately concluded in their current predicament.
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nTomorrow – the sentence
