Fact Check: Were dead bodies found in Ben Franklin’s London home?

Ben Franklin, also known as the “first American," lived in a house on 36 Craven Street in London from 1757 to 1775. He stayed at the London house when he was the American colonies’ ambassador. More than two centuries later, in 1998, an organization found human bones in the basement of the house while restoring the property.

Benjamin Franklin played an important role in shaping America. He was a prominent scientist, inventor, and politician. However, was the man whose portrait is featured on the present-day 100-dollar bill in the US a murderer?

The organization that executed the restoration of Franklin’s four-story Georgian house is called Friends of Benjamin Franklin House. Jim Field, one of the construction workers, found something in a basement room with no windows. The basement is located right underneath Franklin’s garden. It was later identified as a human thigh bone.

The police were informed, and after their thorough search, more than 1200 bones were discovered, which were buried deep in a 3.28 x 3.28 feet pit. A forensic analysis of the bones determined that they were not fresh. Additionally, a biologist from the University of London concluded that these remains date back to the mid-18th century. Hence, calculation-wise, the humans were buried in the house around the same timeline as Franklin’s stay at the house.

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Who did the bones belong to that were found in the basement of Ben Franklin's London house?

According to forensic reports, the human remains found in Franklin’s house came from more than 15 individuals. Dissection marks were discovered on the bones that were likely given by surgical instruments. Lab experts speculated that someone must have pierced holes into the skull bones with a device for perforation.

Benjamin Franklin's London home at 36, Craven Street (Image via SSPL/ Getty Images)

The suspect for this "someone" was William Hewson, a British anatomist and physiologist married to the daughter of Ben Franklin’s landlady. Hewson and Franklin were said to have been friends as well as neighbors.

Hewson also had his own scientific ventures, just like Franklin. He once experimented with a dead sea turtle, on which he injected mercury to gain more knowledge about the functions of the lymphatic system, in general, since humans also have this system in their bodies.

After checking into Hewson’s background, the case got more leads. Not all the bones buried in Ben Franklin's basement belonged to humans. Some of them were bones of sea turtles, and one of the shell fragments of those turtles contained a small mercury bead. Moreover, six of the fifteen individuals whose remains emerged from the pit were children.

William Hewson (Image via benjaminfranklinhouse.org)

Historical and forensic evidence confirmed that William Hewson was the man responsible for the bones. However, the question still remains: why would Hewson bury humans or other creatures in Ben Franklin’s basement?

Back in 2003, The Guardian said that the most tenable explanation for the mystery of these bones is probably the anatomy school that Ben Franklin's friend, Hewson, ran, which did not focus on the cause being mass murder.

However, back in the 18th century, anatomy lessons were often an ethically ambiguous business, where the experiments were conducted without the subject’s knowledge or consent. It was hard to get a hold of human bodies legally. So, Hewson and the other pioneers of this field had to resort to taking out buried bodies from graves. They either paid professionals to procure cadavers or dug the graves up themselves.