Gt Yarmouth body snatchers

Over the years Great Yarmouth has had many gruesome crimes which have gone down in history.  One such  crime which was quite prolific was body snatching.  Body snatching was the digging up of freshly buried bodies to sell to doctors and students in medicine.  The bodies were then used for anatomy and used to train and experiment on.

One of the most notorious body snatchers was one Thomas Vaughn.  In 1827 it is said he exhumed at least 10 bodies from St Nicholas Church graveyard.  These bodies would then be sold to surgeons and students in London for large sums of money.  These body snatchers would get more money if they delivered corpses of children.  Sir Astley Cooper was the son of the Vicar of St Nicholas Church. And it was him that used to employ the body snatchers to carry out such tasks.  The body snatchers were paid between 10 - 12 guineas for each body that was transported.

Plaque to Thomas Vaughn

Thomas Vaughn went to prison for these crimes, but only served 6 months in prison.  But when he was caught wearing the clothes of the bodies he had dug up, he was transported to Australia.  High fences now now surround what is now called Great Yarmouth Minster.  These were erected after 1827 to prevent such crimes.  The plaque on the gates of Great Yarmouth Minster was unveiled in 2011 as showed in the picture.

Thomas Vaughn hid the bodies he has exhumed in his home in Row 6, which is now called Body Snatchers Row until they were collected for transport.

A typical row in Gt Yarmouth

These were, of course, such terrible crimes and I can't imagine the pain the families must have gone through.  It is hard to imagine that people in a professional manner would commit such grizzly crimes.