Shortly after the burial of Hannah Beswick’s body at Harpurhey Cemetery, James Dronsfield published an account of her life, death and afterlife that would influence subsequent retellings of the story. In this account, Dronsfield not only gave the woman a full name, but also situated her story in Hollinwood, a small village on the outskirts of Oldham. Introducing a supernatural element to the story, Dronsfield transformed Hannah Beswick from a museum curiosity into a ghost story and a piece of folklore. This chapter explores that transformation, considering the relevance of local geography and history, and examines various iterations leading up to the twentieth century. The chapter goes on to show that the ghost story version of the story led to questions being raised about the validity of the woman’s will, introducing the question of inheritance to the story. Although the story given by visitors to the museum had suggested an ‘eccentric testatrix’, the more romanticized elements of the ghost story created a sense of mystery around the terms of the woman’s will, despite the fact that the identification of the woman’s name and date of death meant that her will could finally be located and examined. This chapter argues that this complex response to ‘Madame Beswick’ would shape and influence twentieth- and twenty-first-century retellings of the ‘legend’.

While the body of Hannah Beswick was a local curiosity for the people of Manchester, it is not the only preserved (non-ancient) female body to be displayed in a museum collection. The embalmed bodies of Maria van Butchell (d. 1775) and ‘Miss Johnson’ (d. 1775) were displayed in the Hunterian Museum in London until they were destroyed by a bomb in 1941. Clear comparisons can be made between these three cases, not only in terms of the interest in the display of female corpses, but also in terms of the somewhat prurient legends that accrue around them (for example, ‘Miss Johnson’s’ alleged identity as the anatomist John Sheldon’s mistress, Hannah Beswick’s eccentricity and fear of being buried alive). Through comparison with the bodies of Saartje Baartman and Julia Pastrana, women who were exhibited as curiosities in life, as well as in death, this chapter explores the treatment of the preserved female corpse, examining the tendency towards exoticization and sexualization. Nevertheless, it argues that the lack of sexualization in the case of Miss Beswick's displayed corpse may point towards issues of class and perceived wealth, with the Manchester Mummy being presented as something more 'domestic' than other preserved corpses on display in museums at the same time.

In 1868, after three years of negotiating its future, the Peter Street museum closed its doors, the property of the Natural History Society was conveyed to Owens College, and its collections were dispersed. Some specimens, like Azru and Old Billy, were retained for the museum to be housed at the new Owens College building on Oxford Road (now the Manchester Museum, part of the University of Manchester), some, like Vizier (who went to the Louvre to be ‘forgotten in an attic’), were given to national museums, and some were discreetly destroyed or sold at auction. The body of Hannah Beswick was buried in an unmarked grave in Harpurhey General Cemetery on 22 July 1868. This chapter first offers analysis of the demise of the Natural History Society museum and the concurrent rise of Owens College as a provincial academic institution. It considers the arrangements through which the Society's collection was transferred to the College, as well as the decision not to include the body of Hannah Beswick in the new Manchester Museum, but instead to bury her body in a discreet municipal grave. Through archival evidence, this chapter explores the complications faced by the Society's Commissioners, who were left to dispose of an anonymous corpse with no precedent or protocol to draw on.

In 1890, labourers in Cheetham, a suburb to the north of Manchester, unied a coffin in what had been the floor of Hannah Beswick’s former residence, Cheetwood Old Hall, and this led to a revival of interest in ‘The Manchester Mummy’, with numerous stories appearing in the local and national press, and letters from readers purporting to tell the ‘true story’ of Hannah’s life, death and mummification (including from people who claimed a familial relationship to either Hannah or someone who had known her during her lifetime). Unlike the ghost stories discussed in the previous chapter, these stories followed a pattern of appealing to authority and attempting to close the generational and geographic distance between teller and listener, and so they can be understood as a form of urban legend. This chapter argues that the events of 1890 allowed for the creation of a Hannah Beswick that can be understood through the lens of the Gothic; the disiy at Cheetwood was literally the result of the industrialization of Cheetham Hill (with the post-medieval manor house being torn down to create a brickworks), and thus the reception of the story and subsequent retellings of the Hannah Beswick story reveal as much about the late Victorian popular imagination as it does about the circumstances of the disiy.

On 18 May 1835, the museum of the Manchester Natural History Society opened in purpose-built premises just off Peter Street (on the corner of what is now known as Museum Street). This opening chapter looks at what it meant to open (and visit) a museum that was, unusually for the time, not in London. Using archival material, it examines the reasons for opening the museum, the original intended audience for the collections, and the methods used to develop the museum’s collections. It traces the evolution of the museum from an exclusive institution affordable only for the wealthy, to a civic institution bringing science and history to the people. It examines an issue that remains current in museums to this day: the contradiction between the drive towards scholarly preservation and the museum’s purpose in providing public edification/entertainment that would play out in the display and reception of ‘The Manchester Mummy’.

In 1966, Harry Ludlam published an account of the Hannah Beswick story that combined ghost story with some research into the woman’s life and family. Although this story replicated some details from older versions, specifically in terms of the woman’s desire to be left unburied and the supernatural phenomena that followed her death, it was notable for its inclusion of careful genealogy and details of local geography. Nevertheless, as the Hannah Beswick story began to circulate on the internet towards the end of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, this care and detail was obscured by confused and inaccurate variations. This chapter explores some of the more recent iterations of the narrative, arguing that the story of the Manchester Mummy remains a ‘curiosity’ to be understood through fanciful and sensationalized story rather than serious academic scrutiny. The chapter goes on to explore some of the ways in which a type of civic amnesia (the forgetting or obscuring of aspects of Manchester’s past, such as the response to the Jacobite rebellion of 1745) has created a space in which the more fanciful narratives can circulate without any challenge. The first part of the book concludes that almost all the versions of the story explored so far should be treated with a degree of suspicion or cynicism.

The book’s epilogue offers a personal reflection on graves and burials, beginning with an anecdotal account of a local supermarket built on the site of a former cemetery. This reflection goes on to consider the numerous bodies in the book that have been kept out of the grave or disinterred after burial to unsettle a notion of the grave as a permanent or final resting place. The epilogue ends by returning to the idea of the unburied corpse as the source of entertainment, particularly around the time of Halloween, concluding that anxieties around the unburied corpse still sit alongside entertaining tales of post-mortem reappearance, just as they did when Hannah Beswick’s body was a museum exhibit.

This chapter introduces and narrates Hannah Beswick’s life and family history, using a variety of archival and genealogical records to narrate the facts. In addition, contemporaneous primary sources, including diaries, commonplace books and property deeds, are used to give this history some context. The story that emerges differs from those recounted in the first part of the book, and it is one that draws on the reality of eighteenth-century Manchester to allow Hannah Beswick’s life to be better understood. The chapter concludes by asserting that Hannah Beswick was a fairly normal, though very wealthy, member of a gentry family, whose daily life likely included socializing with friends and family, music, dancing, and the management of property and the estate. This assertion serves as a precursor to subsequent chapters, which will explore how this ‘normal’ woman came to be embalmed and displayed in a museum.

This chapter explores developments and changes in the medical profession during Hannah Beswick’s lifetime. Specifically, it considers the separation of the barbers and the surgeons, and the impact this had on the teaching of anatomy in London and Edinburgh. This provides context for a narration of the career of Charles White, the man responsible for mummifying Hannah Beswick’s body, but also the scientific impetus for the ‘body-snatching’ and public dissections discussed in previous chapters. Various techniques for preserving a corpse are described, which illustrate the scientific principles being tested and demonstrated. Not only does this explain the intentions of the surgeons who embalmed body for display and teaching purposes, but it also suggests possible reasons why an individual might consent to the post-mortem procedure.

This chapter explores the significance of the bequest made by Hannah Beswick to i her funeral expenses. It examines the changes in funeral practices between the death of Hannah’s mother, Hannah’s own death, and the time of her delayed burial, and the ‘professionalisation of death’ that occurred during this time with the rise of undertaking as a commercial profession. Alongside this, consideration of the average costs of funerals during this period is used to argue that Hannah’s bequest is far too high (and too specific) a sum for an ordinary funeral. The chapter goes on to explore the history of embalming as a funereal practice, including explanations for the purpose and techniques employed. The chapter ultimately argues that, while the ‘mummification’ and display of Hannah’s body has been described as a ‘ungenteel fate’, a standard funeral is not a guarantee of a ‘genteel fate’. Through further consideration of the detail of Hannah’s will, alongside the recorded disiy of human remains at Cheetwood discussed in a previous chapter, this chapter concludes by positing that Hannah Beswick actively chose post-mortem preservation of her corpse at the hands of a surgeon, likely for religious reasons or other sensibilities, and that her viscera were ceremonially interred at Cheetwood Hall with the full knowledge of her friends and family.

This chapter continues the narration of Hannah Beswick’s life, including consideration of her social circle. It offers minute examination of Hannah’s will, exploring the implications of her bequests. Using archival and genealogical sources, the identities of Hannah’s heirs and executors is revealed, including Mary Greame, a woman who has previously been overlooked in earlier versions of the story. The chapter gives biographical information about Mary Greame, suggesting a close but non-familial relationship between the two unmarried women. There is also some consideration of other previously overlooked, but nevertheless revealing, bequests in the will, including Hannah’s somewhat pointed reference to the practice of the ‘heriot’ (a form of feudal inheritance tax). The chapter argues that the will contains indications of Hannah’s character, as well as her final wishes in relation to property and money.

This chapter explores the foundation of the Manchester Infirmary, and the social circumstances that led to its establishment. It gives an overview of the socio-economic background of eighteenth-century Manchester, as well as the public health challenges the expanding town faced. The foundation of the Infirmary is illustrated through the use of a triumphant poem that appeared on the front page of Manchester’s newspaper, and the role of Charles White and other surgeons and physicians is explained. Hannah Beswick was an early, and generous, supporter of the new infirmary, and her donation is presented within the context of other members of the gentry. The chapter argues that Hannah’s early contribution suggests that she was familiar with the plans for the infirmary and was likely contacted directly by one of the founders during the fundraising stage of the hospital’s development. The chapter goes on to suggest that the level of trust such a donation requires means that Hannah had some prior knowledge of the person requesting the donation, and that her subsequent actions certainly allow us to believe that Charles White would be a person who commanded that degree of trust.