Synopses & Reviews
The 1853 Burial Act introduced changes that would affect every English town and village outside London. New cemeteries looked set to replace the centuries-old churchyard, removing the dead from the heart of the community, and burial became a scientific rather than a spiritual concern. The secularisation of burial has long been regarded as an essential symbol of modernity, but was this process so straightforward? This study challenges a long-standing tendency to regard the churchyard as inherently 'traditional' and the cemetery as essentially 'modern.'
This fascinating volume reviews the burial history of central North Yorkshire. New evidence demonstrates that the Church of England continued to have a substantial role in burial provision, and largely benefited from the Burial Acts. Furthermore, reviewing churchyard and cemetery provision in tandem demonstrates that one did not necessarily replace the other. Rather, both were subject to the play of new expectations for burial space to guarantee that families could be buried together with opportunity for formal commemoration. Population in the area declined, but demand for burial space meant that many dozens of churchyards were extended, and forty new cemeteries were laid out.
Sure to become essential reading for modules on Victorian death, this book is accessible to an undergraduate audience at the same time as providing clear narrative and theoretical frameworks to challenge presumptions at higher levels. It will be also be invaluable to anyone involved in the management and conservation of burial ground.
Synopsis
Reviews the burial history of central North Yorkshire
Synopsis
This book explores for the first time the turbulent social history of churchyards and cemeteries over the last 150 years. Using sites from across rural North Yorkshire, the text examines the workings of the Burial Acts, and discloses the ways in which religious politics framed burial management. It presents an alternative history of burial which questions notions of tradition and modernity, and challenges long-standing assumptions about changing attitudes towards mortality in England.
This study diverges from the long-standing tendency to regard the churchyard as inherently 'traditional' and the cemetery as essentially 'modern'. Since 1850, both types of site have been subject to the influence of new expectations that burial space would guarantee family burial and the opportunity for formal commemoration. Although the population in central North Yorkshire declined, demand for burial space rose, meaning that many dozens of churchyards were extended, and forty new cemeteries were laid out.
This text is accessible to undergraduates and postgraduates, and will comprise an essential resource book for historians, archaeologists and local government officials.
About the Author
Julie Rugg is a Senior Research Fellow and heads the Cemetery Research Group at the University of York
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I
1. Burial in 1850: national and local contexts
2. 'Dr Hoffman was good enough to consult me': churchyard closures
3. 'A very modern act': the Churchyard Consecration Act and churchyard extension
4. 'It was entirely a question for the parishioners': burial board management
5. 'No differences are so deep as those which arise over the grave': the religious politics of burial
6. 'Casting into the great crucible of the present ferment all manner of time-honoured traditions': new legislative contexts for twentieth-century burial
Part II
7. 'It was a task which he would be greatly pleased to hand over to some other person or persons': centralisation and cemeteries, 1894-1974
8. 'Being desirous of avoiding a burial board': the churchyard as cemetery
9. 'Unobservable or inconspicuous to the casual visitor'?: the changing churchyard landscape
10. 'Thoroughly untidy': changing burial culture, 1850-2007
Bibliography
Index