William Millard King of the Body Snatchers! Fine quality Georgian dress dirk c.1825.

Fine quality Georgian dress dirk c.1825. Type largely made for naval officers, but privately produced and purchased. This example with 10 1/4" curved s.e. blade decorated with foliage and a central motif, probably armorial but possibly the East India Company. Original collection tag Worn by William Millard when in the East India Co Lahore (?) 1826-7. William Millard was described as King of the resurrection men and one of two resurrection men convicted in 1823 of selling corpses exhumed and stolen from the burial ground of London Hospital. At the time, it was believed that criminals were physically aberrant and after 1752, it was ordered that all murderers be dissected and anatomized to identify the abnormalities. The purchase of non criminal corpses was essential to medical schools, but illegal. Millards conviction corresponds exactly to foreign service in 1826 which likely was a condition of his release. No other William Millard is recorded in the time interval and the wording of the tag clearly implies that it is the William Millard, whose name would be immediately recognized by the reader at that time. The very stuff which inspired the horror movies of our youth!