Building the city of the dead: Bath and burial reforms, 1820–1860

ABSTRACT

Between the start of the cemetery movement in Liverpool and Manchester in the early 1820s, and the first wave of closures under the Burial Acts in the mid-1850s, Victorian cities underwent a profound change, as churchyards fell out of favour and were replaced as primary places of burial by secular, multi-confessional cemeteries with government-mandated rules and aesthetic innovations. Behind the scenes of this funereal transformation, entrepreneurs, public health reformers and the Anglican clergy fought over the conditions governing this change. The result was a series of compromises that shaped the cities of the dead. These were not merely physical structures, as ownership and control of human corpses were determined by complex sets of laws, privileges and countervailing authorities. The city of Bath, arguably the eighteenth century's most successful resort town, had by 1800 become an urban centre characterised by profound social and religious inequalities. The building of a series of burial grounds by Nonconformists, and the subsequent advent of private cemeteries funded and run by Anglican clergymen, diluted the role of parochial vestries, before the Burial Acts reasserted their role in the 1850s, structuring them into local democracies of the dead. Identifying the networks of stakeholders and breaking down their accounting and discourses can provide a valuable insight into the citizenship of the deceased, a secondary agency that influenced the outcome of Victorian social history.

KEYWORDS:

• Victorian society
• churchyards
• cemetery movement
• burial reform
• Bath
• moral economy of the dead

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. ‘Population returns for Bath’ Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, (1831, 21 July, p. 3).

2. Bundle BC/6/2/9/3057, Bath and Northeast Somerset archives, Bath Record Office, Bath.

3. This is evidenced by the cost of the 1840 expansion, which resulted in a 124 pound a year ground-rent. See Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette (1846, 9 July, p. 3).

4. Bundle 480/2/11, Bath and Northeast Somerset archives, Bath Record Office, Bath.

5. See pages by Dr. Bendall in the Bath Burial Index (https://www.batharchives.co.uk/burial-index).

6. ‘Meeting of the Dissenters of Bath’ and ‘Letter to the editor’, Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette (1834, 30 January, p. 3).

7. ‘Dinner to William Miles, Esq., M. P’., Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette (1834, 24 April 1834, p. 4).

8. ‘United Hospital Weekly Report’, Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette (1836, 21 April, p. 3).

9. ‘Public cemetery for Bath’, Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette (1836, 2 June, p. 3).

10. Idem.

11. Abbey parish accounts,1801–1844, bundle DP/https://ba.ab/4/1/1, Somerset Archives and local studies, Taunton.

12. ‘Parish of Walcot’, Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette (1846, 9 July, p. 3).

13. ‘Bathwick Cemetery’, Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette (1855, 10 May, p. 3).

14. Map of Walcot churchyard, bundle D/P/https://wal.sw/3/5/7, Somerset Archives and local studies, Taunton.

15. Abbey parish accounts show that the crypt was no longer in use after 1844. Bundle DP/https://ba.ab/4/1/1, Somerset Archives and local studies, Taunton.

16. Order of the Queen in Council to close several burial sites in Bath and impose restrictions upon others. Bundle 0107-1-34, Bath Record Office, Bath.

17. ‘The City Burial Grounds’, Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette (1855, 25 January, p. 3).

18. Further visits are evidenced in ‘The Burial Grounds of Bath’, Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette (1857, 26 November, p. 3) and ‘The Burial Places in Bath’, Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette (1858, 9 September, p. 4).

19. Report by T. Parfitt presented May 26^th, 1858. Bundle 0107-1-34, Bath Record Office, Bath.

20. ‘Bath City Act Committee’, Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette (1858, 17 June, p. 3).

21. Notably a draft contract between revs. Widdrington and East, in bundle BA/2/BMD/5/4/1, ref. D/P/ba.ab, Somerset Archives and local studies, Taunton.

22. ‘The Cemetery Question’, Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette (1859, 3 February, pp. 9–10).

23. Untitled article, Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette (1859, 27 January, p. 5).

24. ‘Vestry meeting at Bathwick, the cemetery question’ and ‘Parish of St Peter and St Paul’, Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette (1859, 10 February, p. 8).

25. Idem.

26. The parishes of Lyncombe, Widcombe and St James formed a partnership on 18 May 1859, after a failed vote in the Town Council in April. Source: ‘Parish of Lyncombe and Widcombe’, Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette (1859, 19 May, p. 5).

27. St James represented 27% of the partnership’s population, but 38% of its taxable wealth. It thus contributed to 38% of expenses. Source: bundle BC 201/1/1, Bath and Northeast Somerset archives, Bath Record Office, Guild Hall, Bath.

28. St Saviour’s burial board legal documents. Bundle BC 206/5, Bath and Northeast Somerset Archives, Bath Record Office, Bath.

29. ‘St Saviour’s’, Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette (1861, 11 April, p. 3).

30. ‘The Fight at St Saviour’s Burial Board’, Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette (1862, 10 April, p. 3).

31. Account of the 17 October 1887 meeting of the Bathwick burial board, bundle BC 201/1/1, Bath and Northeast Somerset archives, Bath Record Office, Bath.

32. St Saviour’s portion of Locksbrook compensated Nonconformist ministers for their time, likely due to Chaffin’s advocacy for Nonconformist rights.

33. Burial Act 1900 (United Kingdom Public General Act, Chapter 15).

34. Town clerk’s report on the financial health of burial boards in 1905, City of Bath Council and Committee Minutes, 1906, pp. 190–192, Bath and Northeast Somerset archives, Bath Record Office, Bath.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tristan Portier

Tristan Portier has a doctorate in modern history from Aix-Marseille Université. Under the direction of Anne Carol, he wrote a thesis on the management of burial practices in Bath, UK, from the early XIXth century to the centralisation of its burial authorities by the municipal council in 1911, taking special interest in the crisis of the old regime of parish churchyards, the eventual reform and the burial boards that emerged to build and manage new secular infrastructures of the dead.