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Remains of ten bodies at Ben Franklin’s home
The Sunday Times |February 11, 1998WORKMEN have dug up the remains of ten bodies hidden beneath the former London home of Benjamin Franklin, the founding father of American independence.
The remains of four adults and six children were discovered during the £1.9 million restoration of Franklin’s home at 36 Craven Street, close to Trafalgar Square. Researchers believe that there could be more bodies buried beneath the basement kitchens.
Initial estimates are that the bones are about 200 years old and were buried at the time Franklin was living in the house, which was his home from 1757 to 1762, and from 1764 to 1775. Most of the bones show signs of having been dissected, sawn or cut. One skull has been drilled with several holes. Paul Knapman, the Westminster Coroner, said yesterday: “I cannot totally discount the possibility of a crime. There is still a possibility that I may have to hold an inquest.”
The principal suspect in the mystery is William Hewson, like Franklin a Fellow of the Royal Society, and the husband of Polly Stevenson, the daughter of Franklin’s landlady, Mary Stevenson.
In the early 1770s Dr Hewson was in partnership with William Hunter, who, with his brother John, was one of the founders of British surgery. Dr Hunter and Dr Hewson ran a school of anatomy in Soho, but after an argument Dr Hewson left to live in Franklin’s house, where he is believed to have established a rival school and lecture theatre. Dr Knapman added yesterday: “It is most likely that these are anatomical specimens that Dr Hewson disposed of in his own house, but we are still not certain about the bones’ exact age or origin.”
Evangeline Hunter-Jones, deputy chairman of the Friends of Benjamin Franklin House, the charity concerned with restoring the property and opening it to the public, said: “The bones were quite deeply buried, probably to hide them because grave robbing was illegal. There could be more buried, and there probably are.”
Brian Owen Smith has volunteered to lead researches on behalf of the friends. He said yesterday: “The discovery represents an important insight into very exciting years of medical history. Benjamin Franklin, through his support for Polly and Dr Hewson, socially and scientifically, was very much part of that.”
To the suggestion that Franklin might have been a grave robber, or an accomplice to Dr Hewson, Hilaire Dubourcq, of the Friends of Benjamin Franklin House, responded: “It is possible that he has an alibi. It seems likely that he actually let Dr Hewson have use of the whole house for his school for a time, and went up the street to live with Mary Stevenson. He did not necessarily know what was happening below stairs in the house during his absence.”
Dr Hewson fell victim to his own researches at an early age. He accidentally cut himself while dissecting a putrid body, contracted septicemia and died in 1774, aged 34.
Franklin, who wrote the opening words to the Declaration of Independence, continued to support the widowed Polly, and when he returned to Philadelphia he invited her there to live as his neighbour. Both her sons became eminent medical men, as have successive generations of Hewsons in America.
If the first Dr Hewson did obtain bodies for his experiments and demonstrations by robbing local graveyards, he risked the death penalty or deportation. He might have had the help of his students in secretly burying the remains beneath the four-storey house, where the dissections may have been performed.
It is hoped to reopen the house to the public at the end of the year. Regular visitors during Franklin’s residency included Pitt the Elder (the Earl of Chatham), Edmund Burke, James Boswell, Adam Smith and Thomas Paine, the author of The Rights of Man. http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/98/02/11/timnwsnws01012.html?999
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