During the 17th and 18th centuries, a growing number of anatomists, keen to improve their medical knowledge, needed corpses on which to conduct dissections. Bodies were difficult to come by as it was only legal to perform a dissection on the corpse of a recently executed criminal. So body snatchers, also known as resurrection men, made money by digging up fresh corpses and selling them to medical schools and hospitals.

Poor graves were easiest to plunder, as paupers were often buried in mass graves which were left uncovered for a few weeks, until they were full of coffins. Single graves were more difficult and the body snatchers preferred method was to dig a narrow hole down to the coffin, break through the wood and pull the body out by attaching the shoulders to a rope. A body wasn’t considered anyone’s property and so could be taken, but you could be convicted of theft for taking the shroud or clothing so they were left behind.

People were so afraid of being removed from their graves that the rich paid for metal coffins, or wooden caskets bound in metal bands called ‘mort safes’. Many placed metal ‘cages’ over the graves (a few still remain in small church yards to this day.) The fresher the corpse the more money they made. When fresh corpses were in short supply, body snatchers sometimes resorted to more gruesome methods i.e. murder. In 1832, the Anatomy Act was passed, making it an offence to rob a grave. It was only legal to dissect the unclaimed bodies of people who had died in hospitals or poor houses. The act put an end to the body snatcher’s profession. However, dissection was still very unpopular, as many saw it as an act of damnation.

The most famous body snatchers were undoubtedly William Burke and William Hare, two Irish immigrants who went to Edinburgh to work as laborers. Although giving the appearance of two hard working men by day, at night they had took up the more sinister and profitable trade of grave robbing and murder. Their victims of murder were the waifs and strays from the streets of Edinburgh, people who would not be missed. By hanging around Inns they would spot potential victims and lure them to their death by strangulation (so as not to damage the corpse.) The victims of this gruesome crime were said to have been sold to anatomist Dr Knox to be dissected in the medical school.

Their final demise was due to the death of Mrs Docherty, a recent arrival in Edinburgh whom Burke befriended. Burke claimed that he was related to her and offered her food at his lodgings. Later that day Burke had asked his fellow lodgers to move out and stay elsewhere at his expense. The following morning the lodgers returned asking for Mrs Docherty and became suspicious of what was going on. They were not satisfied with Burke’s explanation and discovered Docherty’s body wrapped in straw under Burke’s bed.

It is believed that Burke and Hare were responsible for the deaths of between 13 –30 people but Burke was the only one prosecuted and then only for the murder of Mrs Docherty. William Hare turned King’s evidence against him. Burke was hanged on the 28th January 1829. No charges were ever brought against the Surgeon Dr Knox as being the recipient of the bodies for dissection within the school and William Hare is said to have died a pauper in London in 1858. In an ironic end to the story, Burke’s body was donated to the medical school for dissection. His skeleton is still on display. A small notebook was made of his skin and this is on display at the Police Museum on the Royal Mile.

Top: Kensal Green. Middle: Nunhead. Bottom: Highgate.

By the middle of the 19th century London was running out of burial space. In 1832 a bill was passed that encouraged the providing of more burial grounds outside the city of London. The cemeteries in were all built over the following nine years: Kensal Green (1832); West Norwood (1837); Highgate (1839); Brompton (1840); and Abney Park (1840), Nunhead (1840) and Tower Hamlets (1841.) Unlike churchyards, these cemeteries were independent of a parish church, were located outside the city in what were then suburbs, and were privately run. These cemeteries became known as the 'Magnificent Seven cemeteries'.

Abney Park Cemetery, this cemetery extends over 32 acres on a slope running down from an ancient ridgeway track, now Stoke Newington Church Street, to the course of Hackney Brook.

Nunhead Cemetery 52-acre cemetery, the first burial was Charles Abbott, a 101-year-old Ipswich grocer and the last, a volunteer soldier who became a Canon of Lahore Cathedral.

West Norwood Cemetery has 64 Grade II and Grade II* listed monuments.

Kensal Green Cemetery is London's oldest public burial ground. The cemetery was founded by barrister, George Frederick Carden (1798 - 1874). He had seen Pere-Lachaise cemetery on a visit to Paris and was so impressed that he wanted to produce an English version.

Highgate Cemetery is probably most famous for its bust of Karl Marx. Highgate is considered by many to be the finest of London's 'Magnificent Seven' for its Victorian funerary architecture and landscaping. There are over 168,000 people buried in more than 52,00 graves.

Tower Hamlets Cemetery originally called The City of London and Tower Hamlets Cemetery, was opened by a company of the same name, comprising 11 wealthy directors whose occupations reflect the industries of the day. They were corn merchants, merchant ship brokers, a ship owner, timber merchant and Lord Mayor of London.

Brompton Cemetery was designed by Benjamin Baud containing over 35,000 monuments, many of historical importance. It also has amazing catacombs.

More photos at www.homestead.com/askjeane

In the autumn of 1908 Winston Churchill, then a rising Liberal politician, married Clementine Hozier, granddaughter of the 10th Earl of Airlie. Their marriage was to prove a long and happy one Winston and Clementine's first child, Diana, was born in 1909. The Churchill's' second child and only son, Randolph, was born in 1911. He was exceptionally handsome and his father was very ambitious for him. In 1918 Clementine Churchill gave birth to a third child, a daughter named Marigold. In 1921, shortly after the deaths of both Clementine's brother and Winston's mother, Marigold contracted septicaemia whilst on a seaside holiday with the children's' governess. She is buried in this simple grave in a quiet corner of Kensal Green cemetery, London. Their fourth Child Sarah was born in 1914 and in September 1921 Churchill's' fifth and last child, Mary, was born.

The first time I found the grave of Marigold it was by accident. It was not included in any of the cemetery tours and there is little information about it. I was taking a photo of something else and in trying to capture it all in the viewfinder I stumbled backwards. I felt like there was someone behind me and turned around and stared.....there she was. I read it, re-read it, took a couple of shots and afterwards had a quite word with someone in the know who confirmed that this was indeed Churchill's daughter.
I always wondered why Marigold was not buried with the rest of the Churchill's, it seems so sad that she's there alone. Maybe as she was only three years old they assumed other family would also be buried in the plot. The cemetery at the time had many Royal and notable people interred there so they obviously thought it was ‘the' place to be. Over the years obviously other arrangements were decided on for the Churchill's and sadly Marigold appears to have been forgotten to a certain extent.

I got talking to a lady recently who had worked at Kensal Green. I mentioned about Marigold and she told me that the reason Kensal Green had been chosen was that it was easy to get to for the Churchill's from Westminster and that Clementine Churchill had been well enough to visit their daughter about a year after she died. Around this time two further plots were purchased with the idea that Winston and Clementine would also be buried there with Marigold but it never actually happened after Churchill's career took off. Well that's one mystery solved!