Thomas Williams, born Thomas Head on 28 February 1803 in Bridgnorth, Shropshire, was entangled in London’s most notorious body-snatching crimes of the early 1830s. Apprenticed to a bricklayer, his descent into crime began with theft. He was convicted at the Old Bailey and sentenced to seven years’ transportation—though he later served time in a penitentiary instead, and was released only a short while before resurfacing as a resurrectionist.

Williams teamed up with John Bishop (and others) in the infamous London Burkers. This gang—echoing Burke and Hare in Edinburgh—operated out of the dismal settlement known as Nova Scotia Gardens, exploiting a booming medical school demand for cadavers.

John Bishop and Thomas Williams—flanked by Michael Shields and James May (also known as Jack Stirabout or Black‑Eyed Jack)—formed the notorious London Burkers, a body‑snatching gang active in 1831 around Nova Scotia Gardens, a squalid former brick‑clay pit turned slum northeast of Shoreditch. Their criminal operation mimicked Edinburgh’s infamous Burke and Hare murders. Initially grave robbers, Bishop later confessed to trafficked between 500 and 1,000 bodies over twelve years to anatomists at St Bartholomew’s, St Thomas’, and King’s College. 

The gang’s descent into murder began in October 1831. On 9 October, they lured Frances Pigburn, a destitute woman sleeping rough in Shoreditch, into one of their dilapidated cottages. They drugged her, drowned her in a shallow well, and sold her body for eight guineas—initially offered to St Thomas’s, but finally accepted by a Mr. Grainger. Just days later, on 21 October, they repeated their deadly method on Cunningham, a boy sleeping near Smithfield pig market. After promising lodging, they drugged him with a concoction of warm beer, sugar, rum, and laudanum, drowned him, and sold his remains to St Bartholomew’s for eight guineas.

The tipping point occurred on 5 November, when Bishop and Williams delivered the “Italian boy’s” corpse—possibly named Carlo or Charles Ferriere—to King’s College School of Anatomy. Anatomical demonstrator Richard Partridge, struck by the body’s freshness, swollen features, bloodshot eyes, a cut on the temple, and rigidity—signs inconsistent with a legitimate death—raised alarm. Professor Herbert Mayo was alerted, and police were summoned. Soon after, on 19 November, Superintendent Joseph Sadler Thomas led a police raid at Nova Scotia Gardens, where they discovered clothing hidden in wells and privy shafts—proof of multiple homicides.

The suspects were swiftly apprehended and brought to the Old Bailey, where trial proceedings took place on 2–3 December 1831. Under the gaze of Chief Justice Tindal and other judges, Bishop (33), Williams (26), and May (30) were found guilty. Authorities even cracked open the windows during sentencing so the public could see and hear the verdict delivered.

On 5 December, Bishop and Williams were hanged at Newgate Prison before an estimated 30,000 spectators. Their bodies were then publicly dissected—Bishop’s at King’s College and Williams’ at the Theatre of Anatomy in Windmill Street, The Haymarket. Meanwhile, James May was spared execution; instead, he was transported to Van Diemen’s Land, arriving via Port Arthur, and died there in 1834, buried anonymously on the Isle of the Dead.