Fear of being buried alive was common in the 18th and 19th centuries. Due to this concern the casket companies developed innovative coffins offering a means of signaling for help if they were buried alive. In mid-1700s Hannah Beswick, a wealthy English woman, convinced her physician, Dr. Thomas White, not to bury her when she died – just in case she wasn’t really dead.
For this she offered Dr. White £25,000 if he’d embalm her body and keep it above ground. When she passed in 1758, the physician discovered there was one condition upon which he could keep the money: he would have to look at her once a year, with a witness.
The doctor was a sensible and £25,000 was a big amount, so he had Madam Beswick embalmed, and kept her in an old case. She lay there at the top of his house; and once every year the doctor and a lawyer went up to see her to confirm that she was dead. They drank wine after the little ceremony, and forgot all about it for next 12 months. This continued until Dr. White’s death and after that Beswick’s embalmed body was moved to the Manchester Natural History Museum – only to be known as the Manchester Mummy.
By 1868 officials decided the eccentric woman who feared death was definitely dead. Her wish clearly granted, they decided it was finally time for her to be buried.
About the Author
Dr. K. Raja Gopal Reddy is a seasoned internationally qualified Insurance professional.
What you are reading here, may not answer all the questions we have, but has the absolute power of asking unsettling questions which increase the interest in the strange world, and show the contradictory wonders lying just below the surface of the commonest things of life. Look at this disturbing but beautiful thought of Friedrich Nietzsche “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him”.
Dr. Reddy can be reached at: raja66gopal@gmail.com
