Catriona McCallum 1813-1882
Beneath the portrait, there was a glass case and arranged within it were a series of very familiar-looking notebooks. Tom smiled as he read the information card that lay in the case beside the books.
Catriona McCallum’s early diaries, begun when she was just thirteen years old, have given historians a unique insight into 19th century Edinburgh. Raised in West Port (a stone’s throw from the lodging house where Burke and Hare enacted their ghastly crimes), Catriona’s accounts of everyday city life offer a fascinating view of the Edinburgh of its day and her use of language is sometimes particularly experimental for its time. She went on to publish several novels, including The Path of Truth (1836) and Walking In Eden (1842). A great deal of interest has centred on what appears to be an unpublished novel entitled The Traveller In Time which predates the work of ‘father of science-fiction’, Jules Verne, by decades. The book tells of a young boy from a futuristic Manchester who finds himself transported to the Edinburgh of 1824. Whether she ever sought publication for the story is unclear, but scholars have been intrigued by the book’s dedication, which reads, simply: To Tom. Forever.
Tom smiled and looked back up at the picture.
‘You made it, Cat,’ he said. ‘Just like I said you would.’
Mum looked at him, clearly worried. ‘I’m really not sure you’re ok,’ she said. ‘You seem to be rambling. Don’t you think we should get you over to the hospital and have you checked out?’
He turned and smiled at her. ‘You worry too much,’ he told her. ‘I’ve never felt better. Come on, let’s go and eat.’
Mum turned and he followed her towards the exit. From the picture, Cat’s gaze watched him every step of the way.
Afterword
William ‘Billy’ Burke was tried initially on just one murder, that of Mary Docherty. His early testimony tells of a mysterious stranger who entered the room and left the old woman’s body under the bed. Nobody took it seriously. Throughout the trial he insisted that Nell McDougal was not involved in the murders. Burke was convicted and sentenced to death. He was hanged at 8.15 am on the 28th January 1828, at the Lawnmarket, Edinburgh, in front of a crowd of 20-25,000 people. Seats in tenements that had a view of the scaffold exchanged hands for between five shillings to one pound, displaying a spirit of enterprise that Burke would no doubt have approved of.
The following day his body was dissected at University Old College. Tickets were available for that ‘event’ too and there was a near-riot when it was found that the seats had been oversold. The dissection lasted two hours, during which Professor Munro dipped a quill pen into Burke’s blood and wrote on a pice of paper; This is written with the blood of Wm Burke, who was hanged at Edinburgh. This blood was taken from his head.
Burke’s skeleton is still displayed at the University of Edinburgh’s Anatomy Museum while his death mask and items made from his tanned skin can be seen at his old place of business, Surgeons’ Hall. Wallets supposedly made from his skin were on sale in Edinburgh in the weeks after his execution.
William Hare was offered the opportunity to ‘turn Queen’s evidence’ against Burke, granting him immunity from prosecution. He eagerly took it and gave a full confession, listing all the murders that he and Burke had been party to. This meant that after the trial he was able to walk away with no charges against him, a decision that was (understandably) incredibly unpopular at the time. He was released in February 1829 and headed for Dumfries, but was soon recognised and on his arrival there, found himself surrounded by an angry mob of 8,000 people, all baying for his blood. A police escort took him to out of town, set him down on the Annan Road and instructed him to head for England. He was briefly spotted two miles south of Carlisle and then was never seen again. A popular rumor of the time suggests that a mob of people threw him into a lime pit and that he ended his days as a blind beggar, wandering the streets of London.
Nell McDougall was accorded the uniquely Scottish verdict of ‘not proven’. After the trial she returned to her home, but any hopes of returning to her former life were quickly dashed when she found herself besieged by crowds of people. Disguised in men’s clothes, she managed to escape to the local police station where she was given protection and from there, decided to try her luck in her hometown of Stirling. But once again she was recognised and pursued. She tried Newcastle with the same results, and then Durham, after which, not much is known about her. A popular rumor claims that she died (possibly in a house fire) in Australia in 1868.
Margaret Laird parted company with William Hare on the Annan Road and after that, much like Nell McDougall, she spent her days moving from place to place, pursued by baying crowds. She first tried Greenock and when that failed, she and her baby were put aboard a boat bound for Belfast. Her intention was to head back to her hometown of Derry, but whether she got there or not, we’ll probably never know.
Dr Robert Knox was cleared of all complicity in the murders although this didn’t appease the population of Edinburgh. A few days after Burke’s execution, the doctor’s home was besieged by an armed mob and stones were thrown at his windows. Then an effigy of Knox was hung from a tree on Calton Hill and a bonfire lit beneath it. Knox was forced to flee his home, disguised in his military uniform and armed with pistol and sword. After the heat had died down he continued to lecture on anatomy, but the stigma of Burke and Hare stayed with him and he eventually left Edinburgh and moved to London, where he worked as a medical practitioner in Hackney and later as an anatomist at the Royal Marsden Cancer Hospital in Brompton, until his death in 1862.
The misdeeds of this unholy alliance are probably best remembered in a popular 19th century children’s rhyme.
Up the close and down the stair,
In the house with Burke and Hare.
Burke’s the butcher, Hare’s the thief,
Knox, the boy who buys the beef.
Seventeen Coffins Page 17