#mortsafe

The crimes of Burke and Hare in 1828 skyrocketed fears, and the use of Mortsafes. Churches sometimes purchased them, allowing them to be loaned for a fee. There were also Societies that formed which sold the Mortsafes for an annual fee.

A mortsafe or mortcage was a construction designed to protect graves from disturbance and used in the United Kingdom. Resurrectionists and Night Doctors had supplied schools of anatomy since the early 18th century. This was due to the necessity for medical students to learn anatomy by attending dissections of human subjects, which was frustrated by the very limited allowance of dead bodies—for example the corpses of executed criminals—granted by the government, which controlled the supply.

[ID: a badly edited valentines image with a purple background and a picture of an old mort safe on it. Curly red text progressively gets smaller as it reads “Are you a Mort Safe? Because I want you to hold me until I start to decompose past the point where I can be used for medical research”]

I learned today that Mortsafes were placed over burial sites. This cage-like structure was partially buried within the grave and surrounded the entire coffin. After a suitable amount of time—once the body had decomposed and was rendered useless to the anatomists—the mortsafe could be removed. Did ya’ll know this?

People who were suspected of being vampires were often buried upside down. Sometimes they would have a weight on them or a stake already through them. They made have been dug up and reburied with their head at their feet, or they might have a sickle over their neck or bricks/stones under their chin. But not a cage over them. 

(source: Edinburgh Surgeons Hall Museum) 

Mortsafes were heavy iron contraptions of rods and plates placed over the coffins. They were invented in the 19th Century to protect graves from disturbance. Grave robbery was frequent during that time in Scotland due to the necessity for medical students to learn anatomy. Some say that in Victorian Era cemeteries, these cages were intended to trap the undead, to prevent the corpses reanimate as vampires.

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