Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a ‘resurrectionist’ or body-snatcher, esp. for the purpose of selling the corpse to a hospital’s anatomy department (in an era when the dissection of human corpses was still illegal).

1831		‘Trial . . . of Bishop & Williams, The Burkers’ in C. Hindley Curiosities of Street Lit. (1871) 190: [subhead] Apprehension of the Burkers.
1832		Spirit of the Times (NY) 7 Apr. 2/3: [They] have turned ‘Burkers’ and ‘body-snatchers’.
1850		(con. 1843) Melville White-Jacket (1990) 384: [He] tells of his ‘skulking like a thief’ for whole years in the country round about Edinburgh, to avoid the press-gangs, prowling through the land like bandits and Burkers.
1851		Dumfried & Galloway Standard 12 Feb. 4/5: Even people who ought to know better, shake their heads, and whisper mysteriously about gangs of ‘Burkers’.
1874		J. Greenwood Wilds of London (1881) 171: Awaiting the return of every ‘highwayman,’ or ‘burglar, ’ or ‘burker’ [...] is a ‘lovely young female’.
1893		(con. 1830s) H. Vizetelly Glances Back 44: Real or pretended dread of burkers being invariably assumed by the younger damsels whenever any particularly lonely spot was passed.
1994		V.A.C. Gatrell Hanging Tree 57: The ‘burkers’ were named after Burke and Hare, notorious for supplying surgeons with bodies they had murdered themselves.
2012		(con. 1820s) S. Wise Inconvenient People (2013) 20: The notion of [Dr. G.M.] Burrows being no better than a kidnapper or ‘burker’ was firmly fixed in the public mind.