Fear of the resurrection men and of being accidentally buried alive were two considerations very much at the forefront of a rich, old gentleman’s mind when it came to making his will.
“The will of an eccentric old gentleman, Wm. Hunt, Esq., who died lately in London, was proved on the 24th of September, and the property sworn to be under 250,000l. The testator expresses great anxiety not to be buried alive, and also to escape the resurrection men. An advertisement, cut out of a newspaper, of patent self-closing and unopenable iron coffins, is gummed on the top of the first sheet of his will, and he directs that he shall be buried in an iron or stone coffin, but not until undoubted signs of putrefaction appear upon his body. Other characteristic marks of peculiarity of opinion are scattered through the will. One legacy to a friend is afterwards revoked on account of the said friend’s “extreme bigotry and ignorance, in burning the Philosophical Dictionary of Voltaire, because he could not refute it.” The principal feature of the will, however, is the magnificent bequest to Guy’s Hospital, being the residue of the testator’s property, after a few legacies to executors and friends, and other charities, and estimated at upwards of 200,000l. For this he binds the governors to build and fit up accommodation for one hundred more patients than the original founder provided for. To St. Thomas’s Hospital, the Refuge for the Destitute at Hackney, and the Philanthropic Charity, St. George’s Fields, he has left 1000l. each ; with other contingent benefits in the very improbable case of the governors of Guy’s declining to comply with the conditions of his bequest to that hospital. The vault at Guy’s Hospital he selects as the place of sepulture, in lieu of Bunhill-fields, on the ground that his late brother, Theodore Hunt, who had used him ill, lies there above their two uncles, and he is determined “not to mix his bones” with those of the person alluded to.”
Stamford Mercury, 2nd October 1829