"In the 16th and 17th century, medical practitioners wanted to learn more about the workings of the human body but had few opportunities to really do so.
"Surgeons would hire agents to bargain with condemned prisoners, requesting their bodies for medical purposes after hanging by offering expenses or provisions to their famiilies.
"As Patricia Gray writes in her book The Haunt of Grave-Robbers and Murderers, Britain suffered from a case of "too many surgeons and not enough criminals.
"Illegal supplies of corpses sometimes came from hospitals and workhouses but it was grave-robbing that came to be the main source of supply.
"At this time, snatching a body was only a misdemeanor because in law a body had no monetary value.
"However, if a robber also took the valuables that were buried with a corpse like clothes and jewellery then they became a thief which was a serious criminal offence."
Full article at the Plymouth Herald: https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/history/body-snatchers-plymouth-whose-crime-3593187