Jack Binns, Hero

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1909: On this day, the American House of Representatives suspended business while Congressman Boutelle declared that 'everyone who has read of the collision between the Republic and the Florida must feel there was one silent actor in the tragedy whose name should be immortalised, the Marconi Operator on the Republic, Mr John R. Binns'. John Binns (who was also known as Jack) went to St Mark's school in Gladstone Street, and the Boys National School (both in Peterborough) before starting work in aged 15 in the Great Eastern Station telegraph office. In 1901, he began work as senior operator in the Colchester telegraph office. Over the next eight years he built up a reputation of outstanding excellence while treating himself how to fix broken lines, apparatus, and connections and completing a Marconi three-month Telegraphy & Shorthand course in just five weeks. in January 1909, as chief telegraph operator on the RMS Republic, he set sail from New York with passengers seeking Mediterranean warmth instead of a cold American winter. In thick fog on 24 January, the steamship Florida rammed the Republic. For the next eleven hours, Jack used all his skills to improvise repairs to his damaged tranmitter and seek help. All passengers were saved. (jackbinns.org; Peterborough Local History Society Magazine Millennium Edition)

Taken from The Peterborough Book of Days by Brian Jones, The History Press, 2014.

Norman Cross

Body Snatching!

1828

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Body snatching was a fairly common practice in the 18th century and 19th centuries. Doctors were in need of human corpses to study, but these were in short supply since the common religious belief at the time was that the body must remain intact for the Day of Judgement. Before the Anatomy Act of 1832, the only legal supply of corpses for anatomical purposes in Britain was those condemned to death and dissection by the courts. Body snatchers (or resurrection men) were the entrepreneurs who filled the demand! Interfering with a grave was only a misdemeanour at common law, not a felony, and therefore only punishable with a fine and imprisonment rather than transportation or execution, so the lucrative trade was worth the risk.

In Peterborough the first instance of body snatching was in 1828. It happened in Cowgate cemetery which used to stand at the top of Cowgate (it was completely removed in the 198os with the development of Queensgate Shopping Centre). One evening a cart was seen outside the cemetery with two men loading suspicious sacks onto it. The alarm was raised and the men fled, with a cart-chase ending near Norman Cross, where the men abandoned their getaway cart with its grisly cargo and fled over the fields.

Body snatching continued to be a problem until about 1860. To prevent it relatives would watch over the graves and guard huts were set up in the cemeteries, one of these from Eye cemetery can be seen in Peterborough Museum.

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Jack Binns, Hero

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Body Snatching!

1828

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