Coffin of Bank's Giant

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 7270, 25 September 1933, Page 8

Coffin of Bank's Giant

UNEARTHED AFTER 135 YEARS. During recent excavation work at the Bank of England, in London, the builders’ workmen unearthed, among sundry human remains, the huge lead coffin of the last person buried within the bank precincts. This was William Jenkins, one of its clerks, who attained a stature of Gt 74in, and died of a decline at the age of 31, on March 24, 1793.

The era of “ body-snatching,” which reached its climax in the exploits of the notorious Burke and Hare, was not yet extinct, and Mr Jenkins’ relatives obtained permission of the governors to inter the corpse in the bank’s Harden Court. They cited rumours that “some surgeons’’ had offered 200 guineas for the body because of its exceptional development. It was in the course of tracing a. foundation wall that the lead coffin, weighing some 3cwt, was discovered about 40ft below ground. It was in a good state of preservation. Other remains near by show signs of greater age.