The Rising Sun

John Bishop and Thomas Williams — the London Burkers — used to scout victims in the pubs around Smithfield in the early 1830s, and The Rising Sun was one of them. They'd drug people with rum laced with laudanum, drown them in a well, and sell the corpses to the anatomy school at St Bartholomew's Hospital next door. They confessed to selling up to a thousand bodies over twelve years. Both were hanged at Newgate in December 1831, a five-minute walk from this pub, in front of thirty thousand people. Their case led directly to the Anatomy Act of 1832. The pub itself may date to 1616, when it was listed as The Starre Tavern. John Betjeman was a regular when he lived around the corner on Cloth Court.