Within the grounds of Irvine Old Parish graveyard lies the headstone of John Fletcher who was born September 1798 in Irvine, son of William Fletcher and Grizel Cowan. A highly respected and successful man, he was a surgeon, Councillor, Baillie and founding member of Irvine Burns Club. In 1826 he was suspected of being a resurrectionist. Ruined socially, he left Irvine for Ayr where he died in November 1830, aged 32. His body was returned to Irvine for burial.
In 1826 the Irvine Town Council minutes record that ‘very distressing depredations had lately been committed in the Church Yard of Irvine by the disinterring and carrying away the bodies of the dead’. It was believed that corpses were being stolen by an organised group and carted to Glasgow University to be used as cadavers. Suspicion fell upon four local men, John Fletcher, Robert Stein, a Glasgow Carrier, butcher William Anderson of Seagate and James Wilson, Sexton and Town Officer who was responsible for the churchyard. Wilson, who had recently built a new house in West Road, later known as the Resurrectionist House, was dismissed from his position in the Council.
By 1826 a Society had already been formed to watch over new burials at the churchyard to which the Town Council donated £10 for several years. They also offered a reward of £20 should any resurrections be caught in the act and apprehended. Following the dismissal of James Wilson, coins were hidden beneath the turf of new graves. An inspection of the graves found that many were missing their coins and several graves were opened in front of a large crowd, revealing that a dozen graves were empty. A search of corpses held by Glasgow University led to the identification of one corpse which was returned to Irvine for burial.
To protect the dead, mortuary workers bound the corpse to the coffin by the neck, feet and waist with wire secured to the outside of the coffin and a mobile Watch House was built to offer some protection to the three men, who armed with oil lamps and blunderbusses, spent each night guarding the graveyard.