Report on a general scheme of extramural sepulture for country towns / General Board of Health.

Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on a general scheme of extramural sepulture for country towns / General Board of Health. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    under the notice of William Lee, Esq., one of our Superintending Inspectors, during his examination of the towns officially visited hy him, amounting to 40 in numl^er. As a summary and example of his expe- rience, he states the following facts with reference, for instance, to the towns of— AsHBY-DE-LA-ZoucH.—The churchyard has been used for ages as the only burial-place of the inhabitants; it is in a very crowded state; the sights frequently presented are of a most painful character. HoLBEACH.—The burial-ground has been used for centuries; it is admitted by all parties to be overcrowded; it is in the centre of the town, and the saline particles with which the soil is impreg- nated, and the nearness of water to the surface, retard decompo- sition for a great length of time. Great Yarmouth.—One half of the parish churchyard has been used above 700 years; the remainder has been added at three several times within the present generation; 9,235 bodies have been interred in it within 20 years; interments are still per- mitted in the old part, although it is very much crowded. BuRSLEM.—It is the practice not only to bury the inhabitants of the town amidst the living, but also to bring the dead from all the suburban and country portions of the parish into the most densely populated parts of the town for such purpose. This complete inversion of the course dictated by every consideration of health, decency, and propriety, is not peculiar to Burslem, but is common to all provincial towns situated in extensive parishes. Norwich.—As far back as 1671, it appears from the fol- lowing extract from Evelyn's Memoirs of that date, vol. i., p. 24], that the greater part of the burial-grounds of this town ^ were then full, and quite unfit for further interments. Speaking of Norwich, he says :— I observed that most of the churchyards (though some of them large enough), were filled up with earth, or rather the congestion of dead bodies one on another, for want of earth, even to the very top of the walls, and some above the walls, so as the churches seemed to be built in pits. The addition of all who have died in this great city during nearly two centuries that have elapsed since Evelyn wrote, has of course made their condition still worse. It is probable that above a quarter of a million of human bodies have been interred since it was said that the earth was raised by the congestion of dead bodies one above another, for want of earth, even to the very top of the walls, and some above the walls ; and all this in the midst of a dense population. I inspected the whole of the burial-