It's quite entertaining reading about all the societies Benjamin Franklin was a part of. I recently visited the Hellfire caves in Buckinghamshire, England, where the Hellfire club (a blue-blooded social club for the wealthy and powerful) held debaucheristic Greco-Roman style banquets in what was effectively an old chalk cave. Franklin was a frequent quest to such dinners from what I was told. It's very eyrie inside, but well worth the visit if you're in the area. I know OPs article dismisses any occult reasons for the skeletons, but Franklin's associations really do lend a certain uncertainty.
Yes, we walked up to the Mausoleum from the cave. It's only a short 10 minute walk up the hill. You get a great view of the countryside from the top. If you want to make a day of it, West Wycombe Park is just down the road (the Dashwood Manorhouse) and a good visit too. A very eccentric family with some great history. The guide was fantastic, and told us a host of stories. A notable one was when Francis Dashwood impersonated Charles XII while in Russia and attempted to seduce Tsarina Anne, and was later expelled from the Papal states. One of many we heard that day. Highly recommend it.
Technically it's body snatching, grave robbing is removing valuables from a grave.
Body snatching was historically just a misdemeanour, while grave robbing was a felony, so body snatchers would usually leave valuables and just take the body.
I think it is really unclear whether it was legal or not (and comes down to definition of those things). Parliament legalised dissections of humans under some circumstances in the 1800s. Before that it was treated as illegal, but I don't think there was an actual statute against it (maybe it was the common law?). Some laws before that specifically allowed it in some circumstances though (you could dissect people convicted and executed for murder for instance). It's a mess...
I agree that grave-robbing is illegal. But I'd have no moral qualms with robbing the grave of someone with no living relatives. It's not like they're gonna mind. We all get recycled in the end.
From what I understand, they robbed the graves of paupers - people who were too poor to afford marked graves. Which is not at all the same thing as having no living relatives.
Thanks for the TLDR!
For what I know dissections of human body are still restricted in most countries and is not a common form of entertainment.
What a fun epoch Franklin lived in: science experiments was a high society interest that people engage in. Now high-tech-apple-vision rhymes with consumption.
Academic pursuits was really only something for the wealthy, land-owning class back then. Books were expensive. Public libraries were not common. Public schooling wasn't even widespread and certainly wasn't a path to higher learning. People of academic or political fame from history were usually either people of the clergy (who had nothing better to do during the day) or the wealthy who didn't really have to work. Your average tradesman or farmer had neither the time nor resources to do any research or learning outside of what was required for their job. It's amazing how many resources are available to even the poorest of the poor nowadays. Access to the Internet at a library opens so many opportunities for learning that simply was not available to most years ago. College is still out of reach for many but there are still programs meant to help the people afford college. It's not college was expensive back then but simply being accepted required you to be part of the upper class. Joining the clergy offered better opportunities to the middle class to pursue learning. Being poor meant your descendants were probably going to be poor for a long time.
If you're interested in the Hellfire club, you can read both the Wikipedia article, and a more sensationalist article below: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellfire_Club https://www.fodors.com/world/europe/england/experiences/news...