Doncaster

There is strong evidence that there was indeed an international trade in bones in the 19th century, with bones from major battlefields such as Waterloo, Leipzig and Austerlitz being sent to British (and other) factories to be processed into bone meal or industrial bone char , including at the Doncaster bone mills.

Millions of bushels of “human and inhuman bones” were imported via Hull and other countries, ground in Yorkshire and further sold as phosphate-rich fertilizer .

Historians and conflict archaeologists point out that European battlefields with thousands of shallowly buried bodies (soldiers and horses) provided a cheap, concentrated source of bones, with the British Isles being an important market.

Pascal Brackman