Diary of a Graverobber - London's Darkest Trade

The Diary of a Graverobber is a based on true events and real people, drawn from the actual diary of Joseph Naples, a London gravedigger who became part of the infamous Borough Gang in the early 19th century. This British History Podcast dramatises the dramatic events.

This real gang of “resurrection men” supplied stolen corpses to some of London’s most celebrated surgeons — Sir Astley Cooper, Henry Cline — who taught and operated at institutions such as St. Thomas’s Hospital, Guy’s Hospital, and St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.

Astley Cooper

Naples’s confessions recount the grim realities of justice: after being caught, he endured Coldbath Fields Prison in Clerkenwell, where prisoners faced brutal treadwheels, rope picking, and solitary confinement.

Drawing directly on Naples’s diary and historical records, the drama reveals the hidden economy of the dead that thrived beneath the streets of Georgian London when Graveyards in St. Saviour’s, Newington, and St. Olave’s became hunting grounds for men who risked prison, the gallows, and damnation to meet the medical schools’ insatiable demand for bodies.

More than a tale of crime, The Diary of a Graverobber offers a chilling portrait of a society where poverty, ambition, and progress collided — and where the pursuit of science turned the cemeteries of London into the city’s darkest marketplace.

Listen to this British History Podcast here: