The aim of the Cemetery
Research Group, set up at the University of York in 1991, is to
research and understand the cultural significance of cemeteries, and
conducts both historical and contemporary studies in the ownership,
management and use of different types of burial space. There is a
growing interest in the subject of cemeteries, as local history
societies flourish, and people pursuing family history follow leads
from or to a gravestone in a local burial ground. Despite the growing
interest, however, there remain many, many unanswered questions about
cemeteries and their history, and this short article will sketch out
some areas of interest that could usefully be pursued by historians
with local expertise.
The history of individual cemeteries can often easily be pursued
through local history and archive offices. Even researching when a
particular site opened can reveal an interesting local story. It is
often the case that, prior to a cemetery’s actual opening data, a
‘pre-history’ is in evidence, of local discussion on the need for new
burial space, debate on which agency should take responsibility, and
the sometimes protracted measures taken to secure land and lay it out
for burial purposes. Local sources such as newspapers and council
minutes can be studied to understand this early history, and the
ongoing management of the site can be reviewed through the relevant
committee minutes and documentation. In some areas, additional
documentation such as business records and administrative records, and
correspondence from users of the cemetery is also available.
In order to understand the sorts of questions that can be asked of this
material, some thought needs to be given to the subject of definition.
Cemeteries are very specific types of burial space, having some key
distinguishing features. These include their physical appearance, their
ownership and management, the way in which the individuality of the
deceased is dealt with at the site, and their ‘sacredness’. Describing
each of these features in turn sets out a research framework on
cemeteries and other types of burial space and expands the study of
cemeteries beyond ‘who lies where’ research that does not always draw
out the full range of meaning that each site contains.
First, some thought needs to be given to the physical characteristics
of cemeteries. Cemeteries are highly artificial landscapes, and their
layout is determined by views on what was thought to be an appropriate
setting for the disposal of the dead. For example, during the middle
years of the nineteenth century, a higher stress was placed on
elaborate planting, serpentine pathways and impressive vistas, in order
to satisfy Romantic sensibilities on the value of natural environments
as a consoling context for grief. Cemetery landscapes are by no means
static, and different maintenance regimes have over time eradicated
some of the initial planting although these alterations too will have a
specific rationale. Very little research has been completed on change
in cemetery landscapes that looks at the history of one site, and this
sort of research is again valuable to an understanding of alterations
in opinion on what was an appropriate landscape environment for burial
and the value placed on the cemetery as a civic amenity.
In addition, cemeteries could be highly hierarchical in their layout,
with separate classes of graves on offer, from the ‘first class’ graves
offering prime location on corners and main roadways to pauper burials
usually located at the periphery of sites. Thus questions can be asked
not only about who was buried at the site, but where they were buried
within the site, and the statements that were being made about that
location.
Second, a great deal of valuable research can be completed on the
ownership and management of cemeteries. Perhaps the first question to
be asked about any site is ‘who owns it?’, and then ‘why do they own
it?’. The answer is not always obvious or uncontentious. For much of
the second quarter of the nineteenth century, new cemeteries were laid
out by cemetery companies, which, through the sale of shares, purchased
and laid out sites, and then paid a dividend to shareholders. Although
these companies have been castigated as examples of Victorian
entrepreneurship at its most crass, on closer inspection they are often
found to be civic enterprises, dominated by local worthies looking to
add a valuable amenity to the town without recourse to an increase in
the rates. In some areas, this action provoked religious controversy as
the Established Church objected to this incursion in its virtual
monopoly of burial, and Dissenters and Church of England congregations
battled over apportionment of the land once a cemetery had been built.
After the middle of the nineteenth century, as Burial Boards came to
dominate cemetery foundation, similar arguments were in evidence.
Ownership of the place of burial conveys substantial power that during
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was shifting from ecclesiastical
to secular authorities, and local histories of this change have yet to
be written.
Third, burial sites can be distinguished by the way in which they
protect or enhance the individuality of the deceased. During the
nineteenth century, Romanticism placed a great stress on the uniqueness
of the individual, and cemeteries flourished because of their ability
to offer burial in perpetuity, or burial where there was a guarantee
that the body would never be disturbed. In addition, cemeteries offered
the possibility that families could erect memorials over their grave,
so making the grave a focus for ritual behaviour that was certainly
constrained within the gruesomely overcrowded urban churchyards of the
first half of the nineteenth century. Recent studies have shown that a
comparison of burial registers with memorial inscriptions do not always
tally, and that family members memorialised on a particular monument
may be buried elsewhere within the site. Again, valuable work is yet to
be completed on funerary practices with regard to the decisions taken
by families with regard to memorialisation, the use of grave space, and
attitudes towards having to make recourse to unmarked, pauper burial.
This kind of material could be found in family papers, and has — in one
recent study — been pursued through correspondence to Burial Boards.
Again, attitudes towards memorialisation change over time. During the
twentieth century cemetery aesthetics shifted towards a simpler, more
communal approach to memorialisation. There was a reduced emphasis on
the site of burial itself, and a greater interest in recreating
cemeteries as ‘gardens of rest’, devoid of what was thought to be ugly
and morbid stonework that said more about snobbery than sentiment.
Again, family papers and oral histories would be essential to
understanding how people viewed these shifts in purpose for cemeteries.
Finally, cemeteries can be understood in terms of ‘sacredness’.
Sacredness can be defined in a number of ways, and in this paper it can
be viewed as being afforded special status or protection. It is worth
asking of a cemetery, ‘What - if anything - makes this site sacred?’.
Churchyards are often regarded as being sacred because of their
physical connection with a church and because of the control of
ecclesiastical authorities but notwithstanding these factors,
churchyards are vulnerable to alteration for other purposes — for
example, being cleared and laid out as small parks. Cemeteries are
afforded greater protection since their sacredness in part derives from
the fact that they are still used for burial and remain places of
‘pilgrimage’ by people who routinely visit graves. However, sacredness
remains a contested notion. Bereaved people, family and local
historians, groups with an interest in a particular famous individual
buried in a grave, and heritage and nature groups all regard cemeteries
as sacred for different reasons, and charting the importance ascribed
to a site over time is again a valuable history to follow. Where
cemeteries fall into disuse, their history does not end, and
understanding their changing functions within a location again says a
great deal about how a community deals with death.
This paper has reviewed some questions that can be asked about
cemeteries, and aims to generate a wider interest in the study of
burial places in themselves as exciting subjects for local research.
Further information on some of the issues discussed here and a
bibliography can be found at the Cemetery Research Group website on <
http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/chp/crg/index.htm>.
Dr Julie Rugg, the Cemetery
Research Group, University of York, conducts research on many aspects
of cemeteries and their cultural sign ificance. Her doctoral thesis
considered the emergence of cemetery companies in the UK in the first
half of the nineteenth century, but her interests are widely
international and cover cemetery history in the western world from
around 1740 to the present day.
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