Child Murder in a London Church? December 2, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern , trackback
This is an extraordinary story about child murder in a London church. In fact, the real story here – thinking of this site’s interest in urban legend and rumour – is the power of a freak event involving bodies to whip a working class area into a frenzy, but we’ll get to that…. In August 1864 the following story appeared in many British newspapers.
Great excitement was caused in the neighbourhood of Whitechapel on Friday morning by the discovery of the remains a number of children covered over by a heap of rubbish near the parish church [of St Mary’s]. There are at least eighteen bodies, several of them being shockingly mutilated, and in some cases deprived of the heads, which appear to have been removed for some purpose. It will be remembered that some time ago a number of bodies were found concealed in the roof of the church, and that official investigation was made into the matter. It is now believed that the shocking discovery made on Friday has some connection with the previous one, and that the parties concerned with the sacrilegious transaction have placed these fragments of humanity where they were found with a view to ulterior removal. This opinion is somewhat confirmed from the fact that the bodies have been but recently deposited their present position. Carlisle Journal (23 Aug 1864), 4
Beach was quite excited when he read this. It sounds like the beginning of a serial killer story. Whitechapel, the site of course, of the Ripper murders a generation later, was one of the poorer London districts. Some monster had evidently been offing children. Almost as interesting was the foment hinted at by the last two sentences. There was some theorizing about the bodies. And what about the previous discovery of bodies in the church roof, for goodness sake? Kids were evidently being murdered at a fair old rate in central London in the 1860s. This report dates to 7 Sep 1863 and was reported in the London Evening Standard, 6
On Saturday, at ten o’clock, a search in a part of the church hitherto overlooked was instituted by order of Mr. Churchwarden N. J. Powell, and with the most unexpected results. In the belfry, behind a sort of wooden chamber or box, containing one of the huge clock-weights, a child’s coffin was found standing on end. Upon proceeding upstairs into the clock-chamber, the man employed in the examination found a child in a shroud, and no fewer than 11 skulls. There was also in another part of the chamber a coffin containing a quantity of sawdust, which, upon being removed, disclosed to view the skeleton of a child with a cap on the skull. These and other remains had been placed behind some beams or joists parallel to the wall, at a height of 18 feet above the floor of the chamber. To reach the spot where the remains were found, it is stated that two persons at least must have been engaged, for the only access to it was by means of a narrow ledge of timber, five feet from the ground, and the coffins have been handed up to the person above by an accomplice. The place to catch hold of was very narrow, and if the person clinging on had made the slightest slip he would infallibly have been killed by falling into the iron machinery of the church bells.
In other words this is nothing to do with murder and everything to do with burial. The children’s bodies, when discovered, were skeletal: in fact, the consensus was that some of the bodies had been placed in the church decades before. And the motive? If you can hide a child’s body in a church then you get free burial on sacred ground, of course. That might be a rather insane idea in leafy Buckinghamshire, but in the grimiest part of proletarian London it made a lot of sense. This must surely have been a common practice? Drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com There were 14 bodies found, the oldest of which was three months old: most were stillborns.
As always in these case the fear and pain of the mothers grasps at the throat. Imagine them looking up at the belfry and the graves they could never visit…
The affair of 1863 created ‘much scandal’ in the area: one site (with an extensive, well worth reading report) has locals talking of the ‘murder of the babies in the church’. This was certainly misguided. In any case, the discovery in the graveyard in August 1864, suddenly has to be seen in another light. These were not bodies but again skeletons. ‘Shockingly mutilated’ presumably refers to broken down skeletons? Beach thought at first that the most logical explanation was that they had been placed, again, as free burials on holy ground? But the absence of a coroner’s report or, indeed, any further press interest rang an alarm bell. It transpires, in fact, that the rubbish heap was the remains of a bone house! It is a lean gruel of facts, but the local population were evidently primed by the events of September 1863 to make this into a scandal. The penultimate sentence of the report suggests that they had given up on murder and were making the case that these were bodies carried off to be used in a black mass or for glue making.
It is now believed that the shocking discovery made on Friday has some connection with the previous one, and that the parties concerned with the sacrilegious transaction have placed these fragments of humanity where they were found with a view to ulterior removal.
We seem to have here the iceberg tip of rumours in a London parish, peeping out of a calm journalistic sea. Child murder, indeed!
8 Dec 2016, Marge writes: Coming at this from an older historical perspective, my first assumption was that as these were all infants, this was to do with prohibition on burial in consecrated ground of unbaptised infants. Illicit burial of unbaptised infants in churchyards seems to have been common (eg). And as to why they were in the roofspace and not the ground – a couple of decades before the 1860s dates them to the time that the the ‘Magnificent Seven’ burial grounds were being constructed – and they were constructed because existing parish graveywards were so overcrowded that to dig a grave would be likely to cut across previous burials. Going into the church itself allows you to leave your child on consecrated ground without potentially having to put a spade through your grandfather. Unfortunately, I went to check when the burial of the unbaptised on consecrated ground was allowed in the Anglican church, and found this paper: So it seems that at least some places did allow the burial of unbaptised stillbirths. I wonder if either there was variation between parishes, or that these remains were older than they appeared?
8 Dec 2016: Bruce T: It’s not a completely unknown thing here. I’ve heard two explanations and both of them make sense. The first is they’re the still born, along with the grossly deformed, and babies that died shortly after birth, before they could be christened. Two, and this is a bit more gruesome, is that many are the sickly children of poor families that could barely afford to feed themselves. Food was supposedly withheld once it was clear the child wasn’t going to make it and nature was allowed to take it’s course. Putting them in the rafters as you wrote, put them in a sacred space where the could be assured of going to a better afterlife.
In Europe, it partially could have been a way to deal with skeletal remains until new catacombs could be dug out. By the time that work was done they may have been forgotten by everyone but the bell ringer who may have had no idea who they were and why they were up there.Suspicion of pocketing the burial fees as a possible motive? I never thought about that. A profitable scam in a crowded city in a religious time. Put the babies in the rafters, and plant someone with more cash in the graveyard. I do find it interesting that the actual reason was more along the lines of what turns up here. A bit of cultural continuity that lasted until early in this century.
The skeletons here too are often found when the old church is torn down, improvements are made, or some curious preacher goes knocking around the attic. I’ve never heard of it occurring in such large numbers, but this is a younger country, and civic graveyards have been the norm in most areas until the advent of “pay to plant” commercial graveyards after WW II. (If you ever want to make a bunch of money on marginal land in the States, cemeteries are a good way to do it.)
In the cities of the East Coast, in 18th and 19th cen. houses you’ll sometimes come across burials of infants in the cellar, along with the occasional adult. Cheaper than a formal burial in the latter case, and less questions in the first. Were the infants in the houses unwanted babies, stillborn, late-term home abortions, deformed, or done away with by a crazed mother or father? Your guess is as good as mine.
My family has been buried for generations on both sides in churchyards with no thought of fees. I shell out fifty dollars a year for upkeep as does everyone else who has plots. Of course, that may have to do with donating the land for all three and the adjoining churches? I’ve attended the church where I will be planted exactly once in my life, and that was for a wedding when I was roughly six.
Between you and me it’s a good spot to drink a couple of beers and piss on the graves of certain bunch of relatives by marriage that my Grandpa went to his grave demanding never be buried there. My Uncle caved after Grandpa died. I owe it to the old guy that for raising me. They’re due to be watered again in the spring. I’m a tad mad at them for sneaking one in on me a couple of years ago without asking, but he was the only one of the bunch Grandpa and I could stand. He will stay dry, as always.
