The Crime and Trial
George Foster (or Forster) was found guilty of murdering his wife and child by drowning them in Paddington Canal, London. He was hanged at Newgate on 18 January 1803, shortly after which his body was taken to a nearby house where it was used in an experiment by Italian scientist Giovanni Aldini, nephew of Luigi Galvani, who gave his name to Galvanism.
At his trial, Foster’s mother-in-law recounted that her daughter and grandchild had left her house to see Foster at 4 p.m. on Saturday, 4 December 1802. Joseph Bradfield, in whose house Foster lodged, reported that they had stayed together that night and gone out at 10 a.m. on the Sunday morning. He also stated that Foster and his wife had not been on good terms because she wished to live with him.
Various witnesses saw Foster with his wife and child in public houses near Paddington Canal during the day on Sunday. The body of his child was found on the Monday morning, and after the canal was dragged for three days, his wife’s body was also found.
Foster’s Defense and Execution
Foster claimed that upon leaving The Mitre, he set out alone for Barnet to see his other two children, who were in the workhouse there, though he was forced to turn back at Whetstone due to the failing light. This was contradicted by a waiter at The Mitre who said the three left the inn together. Skepticism was also expressed that he could have walked to Whetstone in the time he claimed.
The jury found him guilty. He was sentenced to death and to be dissected thereafter — a punishment designed not only to provide medicine with corpses for experimentation but also to ensure that the condemned could not rise at Judgement Day, their bodies having been cut into pieces and discarded. Foster was hanged on 18 January, shortly before which he made a full confession. He said he had come to hate his wife and had twice before taken her to the canal but lost his nerve both times.
Foster had attempted suicide by stabbing himself with a kitchen knife, apparently to avoid awakening during the dissection of his body, in case hanging did not render him dead — a real possibility at that time. Friends of George Foster’s wife also claimed that she was extremely suicidal and had often spoken about killing herself and her daughter.
His “confession” was also in doubt. One of Aldini’s assistants allegedly fast-tracked the entire trial to ensure his employer could have the freshest possible corpse. The fairness of the trial was therefore questioned.
Aldini’s Experiment
After the execution, Foster’s body was given to Giovanni Aldini for experimentation. The experiment he performed on Foster’s body was a demonstration of Galvanism. The Newgate Calendar (a record of executions at Newgate) reports:
“On the first application of the process to the face, the jaws of the deceased criminal began to quiver and the adjoining muscles were horribly contorted, and one eye was actually opened. In the subsequent part of the process, the right hand was raised and clenched, and the legs and thighs were set in motion.”
Several of those present believed that Foster was being brought back to life. The Newgate Calendar reports that even if this had been so, he would have been re-executed since his sentence was to “hang until he be dead.” One man, Mr. Pass, the beadle of the Surgeons’ Company — the same man who expedited the trial — was so shocked that he died shortly after leaving. The hanged man was certainly dead, as his blood had been drained and his spinal cord severed after the execution.
The Frankenstein Connection
Many writers and historians have stated that Aldini was an inspiration for Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein due to his public experiments in bioelectric Galvanism. Aldini’s most famous public demonstration of electro-stimulation on deceased limbs was that performed on the executed George Foster.
While Aldini’s human reanimation experiments coincided with Shelley’s writings — and Foster’s execution was widely reported — there is no direct evidence that Shelley modeled Aldini in her work. Still, she was certainly aware of his experiments, which were performed publicly at the Royal College of Physicians in 1803.
The Science of Galvanism
In 1791, Luigi Galvani discovered that the muscles of dead frogs’ legs twitched when struck by a spark. This was one of the earliest forays into the study of bioelectricity, a field that still investigates the electrical signals of the nervous system today.
Giovanni Aldini was Galvani’s greatest supporter. He helped organize a society at Bologna to foster the practice of galvanism, in opposition to a Volta society established at the University of Pavia.
Aldini’s Public Demonstrations
Aldini traveled across Europe publicly electrifying human and animal bodies, creating extraordinary theatrical spectacles. In 1802, he came to London with a spectacular demonstration. Such performances on humans (and ox heads) produced repeated, spasmodic movements of facial muscles, arms, and legs. He also stimulated the heads and trunks of cows, horses, sheep, and dogs.
An eyewitness reported:
“Aldini, after having cut off the head of a dog, makes the current of a strong battery go through it: the mere contact triggers really terrible convulsions. The jaws open, the teeth chatter, the eyes roll in their sockets; and if reason did not stop the fired imagination, one would almost believe that the animal is suffering and alive again.”
Though a showman in many respects, Aldini was among the first to treat mentally ill patients with shocks to the brain, reporting complete electrical cures for certain mental illnesses. These experiments were described in detail in Aldini’s 1803 London publication An Account of the Late Improvements in Galvanism, which outlined experiments performed before the French National Institute and repeated in London’s anatomical theatres.
The book presented, for the first time, experiments combining the principles of Volta and Galvani. Its illustrations depicted experiments involving human and animal bodies, and it included the first description of magnetizing steel needles through connection to a voltaic circuit.
The Power of Galvanism
Professor Aldini conducted a series of experiments demonstrating galvanism’s power beyond any other natural stimulant. At Bologna, he applied it to the bodies of executed criminals, exciting the remaining vital forces in astonishing ways. The stimulus produced horrific contortions and grimaces in the muscles of the head and face; even an hour and a quarter after death, one corpse’s arm was raised eight inches from the table, despite a considerable weight in its hand.
Legacy of George Foster
The most famous of these experiments took place at the Royal College of Surgeons in London in 1803, on the hanged man George Foster — likely misrepresented, perhaps taking the blame for his wife’s suicide, terrified of strangling on the rope — but who will forever be remembered as the murderer who “almost” came back to life and may have inspired one of the most enduring tales in literary history.
Written by John Grainger.
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