Brown leather child's boots, size 8, from Leeds Union Workhouse Infirmary.
Inscription
LEEDS UNION INFIRMARY WARRANTED / ALL SOLID / LEATHER
Production date
c. 1885
Labels
The Leeds Union Workhouse was built in 1858-61 to accommodate 784 ‘inmates’, next door to the Moral and Industrial Training School for pauper children. These boots were worn by a child in the workhouse infirmary who most likely spent time there for medical attention, perhaps separated from their parents in the workhouse, or orphaned. At this time, people who died in the workhouse (as well as hospitals, prisons and asylums) were at risk of having their bodies dissected against their will.
Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the study of Anatomy, through the dissection of human bodies, became a vital part of medical education. However, only the bodies of executed murderers could legally be used, and this couldn’t cater for the rapidly increasing number of medical students in the country. As demand outstripped supply, the illicit practice of bodysnatching grew, with ambitious surgeons willing to turn a blind eye in the pursuit of knowledge and wealth.
A solution came with the passing of the controversial Anatomy Act of 1832, which would serve to protect anatomists and end grave robbing, albeit at the expense of the poorest and most vulnerable in society. Those who had faced the hardship of the workhouse in life would now be dealt the final indignity of having their unclaimed bodies sold for dissection after death, a punishment previously reserved only for the worst of criminals.
In Leeds, despite protest, workhouse trustees acknowledged the Act and appointed a committee to oversee the distribution of corpses to anatomists. Records from the time show payments to the Workhouse master from the Leeds School of Anatomy, and many of those buried in Beckett Street Cemetery, opposite the workhouse, had taken several months to reach their graves, having first been sent for dissection.
Jennifer Wright, Hidden Histories Project Researcher
