Location 16: Sunderland Graveyard

 

Cutting along Adelaide Place, just behind what was ‘the new’ Parish Vicarage house, you will see the entrance to what is now referred to as Gray Memorial Gardens; this was the Parish churchyard for Holy Trinity Church from 1719 until 1854. This churchyard was said to be one of the largest in the country with over 100,000 burials. The gravestone of Jack Crawford, local hero of Camperdown and the tomb of Reverend Robert Gray, Sunderland’s beloved rector from 1819-1838 can be seen here.

Legend has it; two of the most notorious “body-snatchers” practiced their trade in Sunderland in the early 1820s, trading down the east end in more than just pies! They were William Burke and William Hare. Records claim that, in the winter of 1824, William Burke and William Hare could be found selling hot food on the streets of the bustling town. From the corner of Queen Street, the glow of their charcoal fire could be seen, while as far away as Beggar's Bank they could be heard shouting: "Chelsea buns and mutton pies!"

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The pair, who originated from Ireland, toured the country earning huge sums from grave-robbing. It is possible Burke even learned his grisly trade in Sunderland. William Burke was hanged at Lawnmarket in front of a boisterous, cheering crowd of over 25,000 on 28th January 1829 and, fittingly perhaps, after being put on public display his body was donated to medical science.

 

A number of anatomy students took ghoulish souvenirs of his skin, even using it to bind books and card holders.  Burke’s skeleton is still on display at Surgeon’s Hall in Edinburgh next to his death mask and the life mask of Hare’s face.

 

Hare was released in February 1829 and escaped across the border into England.  No one knows definitively what happened to Hare, but it has been rumoured that he was thrown into a lime quarry by an angry mob and lived out his days as a blind beggar on the streets of London. 

 

One sensational case involved a Captain Hedley, of Burleigh Street, whose 10-year-old daughter died and was buried on Christmas Eve, in 1823. Five days later, wishing to move her coffin to a better part of the churchyard, the captain found the body had been taken. The grave of a two-year-old boy had also been raided. Two strangers whose frequent visits to the churchyard – particularly during funerals – had been observed were suspected of the crimes, and one was arrested in the churchyard. The man soon confessed and his accomplice was caught in a house nearby. Constables searching the building found the girl's body in a corner of a room, packed in a container. The men – Thomas Thompson, from Dundee, and John Weatherly, from Renfrew – were sent to prison for three months and fined sixpence.
 

https://forebears.io/england/durham/sunderland

http://www.sunderlandward.co.uk/holytrinity/holytrinitya.html