Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a body-snatcher.

1826		Morn. Post 13 Jan. 4/3: Resurrectionists. Suspicious [...] that a practice had obtained of sending dead bodies through newcastle to Edinburgh [...] The officers of police [...] opening the box discovered the dead body of a man.
1830		Hull Packet 9 Feb. 4/2: A Wholesale Resurrectionist John Hannah [...] was brought up at the late Salford Sessions [...] having pleaded guilty to [...] having a dead body in his possession.
1832		S. Warren Diary of a Late Physician in Works (1854) III 134: [We] with an experienced ‘grab,’ that is to say, a professional resurrectionist – were to set off from the Borough [...] the third day after the burial.
1839		Odd Fellow 4 May 3/3: [headline] Scene in the Life of a Resurrectionist [...] being resurrectionists no quarter would be given us.
1849		Morn. Post 5 Jan. 4/4: The Resurrectionists — William Reybould [...] charged with proposing to sell a live or dead human being to Mr Johnson, surgeon.
1859		Jeffersonian (Stroudsburg, PA) 24 Mar. 3/1: He was a resurrectionist [...] hired to procure a dead body for a physician for fifteen dollars.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor IV 26: Those who steal dead bodies – as the ‘Resurrectionists’.
1885		Salt Lake Herald (UT) 5 Dec. 7/1: [caption] A Resurrectionist Lifts a Body from the Grave.
1872		Sheffield Daily Teleg. 5 Nov. 3/6: [tile] ‘On a Resurrectionist’. Here lies an honest man, my brothers, / Who raised himself by raising others.
1880		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 3 Jan. 10/1: ‘Body-snatchers,’ or as they are facetiously termed, ‘resurrectionists’.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 7: Resurrectioners - Dead-body thieves for the dissecting room.
1887		Dundee Courier 1 Nov. 3/7: The resurrectionists had been interrupted by the barking and approach of a dog.
1896		J.B. Bailey Diary of a Resurrectionist 137: He continued in the resurrectionist business up to the time of the passing of the Anatomy Act.
1902		Eve. Teleg. 30 Aug. 3/3: [headline] Student Resurrectionists Lifting a Body.
1910		Colville Examiner (WA) 8 Oct. 8/3: One night Julian LeMoyne appeared as a resurrectionist [...] and took up a little coffin lined with lead.
1938		(ref. to 1830) Western Morn. News 24 Nov. 5/3: What notorious resurrectionist of Stoke was transported in 1830?

a surgeon who purchases corpses for the purposes of dissection.

1781

G. Parker View of Society II 144: They [i.e. body-snatchers] go to a Resurrection Doctor, who agrees for a price, which is generally five guineas, for the body.

see under jarvey n.

a body snatcher.

1781		R. King Modern London Spy 106: The persons whom you just now saw, (under the name of resurrection-men) continue their business, getting from one guinea to five or six, according to the value set upon the corpse.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Resurrection Men. Persons employed by the students in anatomy to steal dead bodies out of church-yards.
1798		Hants. Chron. 17 Mar. 1/2: Resurrection Men — [...] Peake [...] was [...] charged on suspicion of being concerned with [...] stealing the corpses of four children and an aged man.
1800		Sporting Mag. June XVI 147/2: Resurrection-men (those sharks, / That for Old Nick don’t care a button, / And barter human flesh like mutton).
1815		(con. 18C) W. Scott Guy Mannering (1999) 346: They were [...] resurrection women, who had promised to procure a child’s body for some young surgeons.
1818		Leicester Chron. 4 Apr. 1/2: [poem title] Tommy Trim and the Resurrection Man.
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London I 239: The Resurrection-men are generally well rewarded for their labours by the Surgeons who employ them to procure subjects.
1829		Morn. Post 16 Feb. 4/2: He told Tom that if he called him a resurrection man again, ‘he would sarve him out in the Burke fashion, and plaister up his chaps’.
1831		Satirist (London) 24 Apr. 24/1: [T]he adroitness of the resurrectionmen enabled them to get possession of the mutilated remains, which they deposited in the safe custody of [...] a hospital theatre.
1834		(con. 1737–9) W.H. Ainsworth Rookwood (1857) 233: Do you take me for a resurrection cove?
1862		E. de la Bédollière Londres et les Anglais 317/2: resurection [sic] men, hommes qui volaient autrefois les cadavres dans les cimetières pour les vendre aux étudiants en médecine.
1866		Stirling Obs. 5 July 6/3: ‘It was a frightful thing [...] to be murdered [...] at the dead hour of night by unearthly resurrection men’.
1884		All Sloper’s Half Holiday 8 May 6/3: A ‘resurrection’ man, who received a fee of twenty guineas, cut off the heads.
1899		Aberdeen Press 21 June 7/4: The resurrection man provided himself with a stout chisel [...] and with a mallet [...] the corpse was thus dragged from its grave [Ibid.] 7/5: The resurrection man and the buffer conveyed the body to a species of outhouse, which the surgeon [...] devoted to the purpose of dissection.
1917		Hants Advertiser 7 Apr. 8/8: Resurrection Man [...] a tall ill-looking fellow [...] had the audacity to call on the most respectable professional men [...] for the avowed purpose [...] of disposing of a subject, warranted perfect in every respect.
1987		S. King Misery (1988) 153: They must look like a pair of Mr. Dickens’s resurrection men.

(UK Und.) body-snatching; the corpse is then sold to a surgeon.

1781		G. Parker View of Society II 144: Resurrection Rig. These are fellows who live by stealing and selling dead bodies, coffins, shrouds, &c.
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London I 233: ‘’Tis only a little bit of a dead body-snatcher,’ said one of the guardians. ‘He has been up to the resurrection rig.’.

1. any dish made from yesterday’s left–overs which have thus ‘risen from the dead’; thus resurrection bolly, a beefsteak pudding.

1839		A. Bywater Sheffield Dialect 17: Yarmouth beef and resurrection pie!
1859		G.A. Sala Gaslight and Daylight 346: There was a dreadful pie for dinner every Monday, a meat pie with [...] horrible lumps of gristle inside, and such lumps of sinew (alternated by lumps of flabby fat) [...] we called it kitten pie – resurrection pie – rag pie – dead man’s pie.
1865		R.S. Surtees Facey Romford’s Hounds 228: Saturday’s resurrection puddings, consisting of all the odds and ends of the week.
1873		Sl. Dict. 268: Resurrection pie once a school but now a common phrase, used in reference to a pie supposed to be made of the scraps and leavings that have appeared before.
1884		in Cornhill Mag. Apr. 438: He gave us resurrection-pie; He called it beef-steak – O my eye!
1894		G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen II 197: It was a meat pie [...] and, of course, following some immemorial schoolboy tradition, we called it Resurrection Pie.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 66: Resurrection Pie, a pie made of scraps and leavings.
1901		J.G. Minchin Our Public Schools 8: The gown-boys dined on ‘resurrection pie’ as they thoughtlessly dubbed it.
1923		Cornishman 12 Dec. 8/5: [advert.] No Resurrection Pie at Swan’s in Alverton [...] Bazaars, Shops and the Trade Supplied.
1929		Derby Dly Teleg. 18 July 4/3: Don’t Make Resurrection Pie [...] There are Daintier Uses for your Left-overs.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks n.p.: Resurrection, pie or dessert.
1959		I. & P. Opie Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren (1977) 183: Mince being ‘hound pudding’, and cottage pie ‘resurrection pie’.

2. in fig. sense.

1908		D.B. Sladen Egypt and the Eng. xii: I do not trouble my reader with the details of the present Constitution of Egypt—that extraordinary resurrection-pie of privileges.
1909		Yorks Post 3 Aug. 8/4: It was not a budget at all but a resurrection pie of all the fads and fancies of Radical politicians.
1932		Northern Whig 9 Sept. 6/4: The hungry sheep of trade unionism looked up to their Parliamentary shepherd, and he fed them on resurrection pie.