Cemetery guns
Each month we choose an object from our collection to explore. For the month of December, Jonathan Ferguson, Keeper of Firearms & Artillery, has chosen an unusual gun with a morbid history.In the early 19th century, as medical science’s demand for cadavers increased, so did the dark trade of body snatching. Grave robbers known as ‘resurrection men’ capitalized on the increased need for corpses, illegally digging up recently buried bodies to sell to medical schools.
Many different methods were adopted to try to stop such body snatchers, such as coffin-torpedoes, and cemetery guns.
What are cemetery guns?
You may have come across unusual trap guns online, where they are sometimes called ‘alarm-gins’ or ‘cemetery guns’. In reality though, these weapons were known simply as ‘spring-guns’ and were used as far back as the early 17th century to protect all kinds of property. They probably saw much more use in game reserves, deer parks or private land than they ever did in graveyards. In fact, all modern references to the practice refer back to the same source; surgeon Bransby Blake Cooper, of whom more later.Nonetheless, it seems likely that many a groundskeeper would have recourse to such a deadly weapon in their efforts to prevent the raising of the dead. Their purposeful yet exotic appearance and undoubtedly grim purpose also fit that Gothic image of a misty graveyard, jutting headstones, and ghoulish figures with spades.
The anatomy of a ‘spring-gun’
Looking at the guns themselves, we find that those from the late 18th and early 19th century are mostly of a similar kind; simple flared blunderbuss style barrels and flint-fired musket locks mounted to an unusual wooden casing. Originally, a cover was fitted over the lock to protect against weather and dew, although no gun would survive being left loaded for more than one cold, damp British night.Read more
https://royalarmouries.org/stories/our-collection/cemetery-guns/
