page_title: Mortsafe
section_title: Surviving mortsafes
hierarchical_section_title: Mortsafe / Surviving mortsafes
caption_attribution_description: English: Cadder: Parish Church, watchhouse and iron mortsafe Cadder Parish Church lies close to the Forth and Clyde canal. This was to the advantage of 19th century grave-robbers in that it provided rapid transport to the anatomy schools in Glasgow and Edinburgh. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore that the graveyard contains not only an iron mortsafe to protect the newly dead but also a watchhouse to provide shelter to the watchers guarding the graves.
context_page_description: Mortsafes were contraptions designed to protect graves from disturbance. Resurrectionists had supplied the schools of anatomy in Scotland since the early 18th century. This was due to the necessity for medical students to learn anatomy by attending dissections of human subjects, which was frustrated by the very limited allowance of dead bodies – for example the corpses of executed criminals – granted by the government, which controlled the supply.
context_section_description: The mortsafes are mainly lying in churchyards and burial grounds; some are very broken and rusting away. One has been restored and hung in a church porch, with an explanatory note, by the East Lothian Antiquary Society. There are one or two in museums but those on display rarely have any indication of what they are or how they were used. Some documents appertaining to mortsafes and other protection devices are still in existence in libraries and record offices. There are two mortsafes in reasonable condition outside the old Aberfoyle church in Stirling, which was fully 30 miles from the nearest School of Anatomy in Glasgow.  One can also be found, in a slightly rusted state, to the right of the door outside Skene Parish Church, Kirkton of Skene, Aberdeenshire.   Another in reasonable condition can be found in the kirkyard at the remote hamlet of Towie, west of Alford. Tullibody, as well as having a famous stone coffin, is also recorded to have had an iron coffin case as an attempt to thwart local body-snatchers.
caption: watchhouse and iron mortsafe in Cadder Parish Church
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