STEVE G wrote:It's not something to do with body snatching is it, some sort of crook-lock for cadavers?
Steve G You are close enough, I suppose body snatching is correct in a way...yes it is
It is a Coffin collar
A coffin collar was used to prevent grave robbers from stealing corpses. It was fixed round the neck of a corpse and bolted to the bottom of a coffin. This picture shows the front of a collar from Kingskettle in Fife. The collar dates from around 1820.
The iron collar is fixed to a piece of wood.
There was a widespread fear of grave robbers in the 18th and early 19th centuries. The demand for corpses was created by advances in the study of anatomy. Corpses were stolen and sold for dissection.
Time was to show that mort-stones were not really the answer to the problem, and the body-snatchers soon learned to dig down at the head end of the grave, then to break off the end of the coffin and to drag the out the corpse by the head. Clearly, a more effective means of defence was required. One solution was the 'coffin collar' a stout iron necklace bolted to the floor of the coffin and designed to prevent the body from being dragged from the coffin. Examples have been found at St Andrew's Cathedral graveyard and at Kingskettle.
sandman67 wrote:Steve pipped me to the post with the anti-Resurection Men suggestion, although if it is its not something Ive seen before and the Resurection Men is something I read quite a bit about. I do know they were very active in Edinburgh around the early 1800s but the stuff Ive read about was mainly heavy stone blocks, cast iron bolt lid coffins and grilles over the graves.
The Beavers (cattle smugglers) were still active at that time swiping cattle from border area farms and shifting them back and forward across the border to avoid tax payments on head of cattle. It could be a cattle shank to mark taxed cattle.
Im stumped.
Steve G did pip you, you were close on his heels though...it was not an easy one
RICHARD OF LOXLEY
It’s none of my business what people say and think of me. I am what I am and do what I do. I expect nothing and accept everything. It makes life so much easier.
RICHARD OF LOXLEY
It’s none of my business what people say and think of me. I am what I am and do what I do. I expect nothing and accept everything. It makes life so much easier.
Some wonderfully inventive guessing going on here, but you're all way, way off target so far. Sandman was closest in time and geography, but still a long way off in terms of purpose.
