In Search of Gravestones Old and Curious Part 9

Credite Posteri!

CHAPTER VIII.

REFORM AMONG THE GRAVESTONES.

That the state of the old churchyards in this country, down to the middle of the nineteenth century, was a public scandal and disgrace, is a remark which applies especially to London, where burial-grounds, packed full of human remains, were still made available for interments on a large scale until 1850 or later. The fact was the more discreditable in contrast with the known example of Paris, which had, as early as 1765, closed all the city graveyards, and established cemeteries beyond the suburbs. One of the laws pa.s.sed at the same time by the Parliament of Paris directed that the graves in the cemeteries should not be marked with stones, and that all epitaphs and inscriptions should be placed on the walls, a regulation which appears to have been greatly honoured in the breach. In 1776 Louis XVI., recognizing the benefit which Paris had derived from the city decree, prohibited graveyards in all the cities and towns of France, and rendered unlawful interments in churches and chapels; and in 1790 the National a.s.sembly pa.s.sed an Act commanding that all the old burial-grounds, even in the villages, should be closed, and others provided at a distance from habitations.[8] Other States of Europe took pattern by these enlightened proceedings, and America was not slow in making laws upon the subject; but Great Britain, and its worst offender, London, went on in the old way, without let or hindrance, until 1850, For fifteen years prior to that date there had been in progress an agitation against the existing order of things, led by Dr.

G.A. Walker, a Drury Lane surgeon, living in a very nest of churchyard fevers, who wrote a book and several pamphlets, delivered public lectures, and raised a discussion in the public press. The London City Corporation pet.i.tioned Parliament in 1842 for the abolition of burials within the City, and a Select Committee of the House of Commons was at once entrusted with an enquiry on the subject.

[Footnote 8: In France in 1782-3, in order to check the pestilence, the remains of more than six millions of people were disinterred from the urban churchyards and reburied far away from the dwelling-places.

The Cemetery of Pere la Chaise was a later creation, having been consecrated in 1804.]

The following were the official figures shewing the burials in the London district[9] from 1741 to 1837, and it was a.s.serted that many surrept.i.tious interments were unrecorded:

From 1741 to 1765 588,523

" 1766 to 1792 605,832

" 1793 to 1813 402,595

" 1814 to 1837 508,162

Total 2,105,112

In the same year (1842) a Export was presented to Parliament by the Select Committee on "The Improvement of the Health of Towns," and especially on "The Effect of the Interment of Bodies in Towns." Its purport may be summed up in the following quotation:

"The evidence ... gives a loathsome picture of the unseemly and demoralizing practices which result from the crowded condition of the existing graveyards--practices which could scarcely have been thought possible in the present state of society.... We cannot arrive at any other conclusion than that the nuisance of interments in great towns and the injury arising to the health of the community are fully proved."

[Footnote 9: London was much increased in area by the pa.s.sing of Sir Benjamin Hall's "Metropolis Local Management Act of 1849."]

Among the witnesses examined were Sir Benjamin Brodie and Dr. G.R.

Williams.

In 1846 a Bill was prepared to deal with the matter, but it was not until 1850 that an Act was pa.s.sed "To make better provision for the Interment of the Dead in and near the Metropolis." Powers were conferred upon the General Board of Health to establish cemeteries or enlarge burial-grounds, and an Order in Council was made sufficient for closing any of the old churchyards either wholly or with exceptions to be stipulated in the order. One month's notice was all that was needed to set the Act in operation, and in urgent cases seven days; but it was found necessary in 1851 to pa.s.s another Act for the purpose of raising funds; and in 1852 a more stringent Act was put upon the Statute Book to deal summarily with the churchyards. This was, in the the following session, extended to England and Wales, the General Board of Health having reported strongly in favour of a scheme for "Extra-mural Sepulture" in the country towns, declaring that the graveyards of these places were in no better condition than those of London.

Consequently, in the years which followed 1850, a general closing of churchyards took place throughout the Metropolis, and to a lesser extent throughout the kingdom, and an active crusade against all similar burial-grounds was inst.i.tuted, which may be said to be still in operation. The subst.i.tution of new cemeteries in remote and mostly picturesque places was of immediate advantage in many ways, but it did little or nothing to remedy the dilapidated appearance of the old graveyards, which indeed, now that they brought in no revenues, became in many cases painfully neglected, dejected, and forlorn. Happily, in 1883, the Metropolitan Public Gardens a.s.sociation was established, and its influence has been very marked in the improvement of the old enclosures and their conversion into recreation grounds. The Metropolitan Board of Works, the London County Council, the City Corporation, public vestries, and private persons, have shared in the good work, but the chief instrument has been the Public Gardens a.s.sociation.

Of old burial-grounds now open as public gardens in the London district there are more than a hundred. Care is always taken to preserve the sacred soil from profane uses, games being prohibited, and the improvements confined to paths and seats, levelling the ground and planting with trees and flowers. The gravestones, though removed to the sides of the enclosure, are numbered and scheduled, and all in which any living person can claim an interest are left untouched. No stones are ever destroyed in the process of reformation, but previous ill-usage and natural decay have rendered very many of them illegible, and in another century or so all these once fond memorials will probably have become blank and mute.

To the middle of the nineteenth century may also be a.s.signed the change which we now see in the character of our gravestones. Quite in the beginning of the century the vulgar and grotesque carvings and Scriptural barbarisms of the eighteenth century had given place to a simple form of memorial in which it was rare to find the least effort at ornament; but, as soon as the Burial Acts were pa.s.sed and the old churchyards were succeeded by the new cemeteries, the tasteful and elegant designs which are to be seen in every modern burial-ground were introduced, founded in great measure upon the artistic drawings of Mr. D.A. Clarkson, whose manifold suggestions, published in 1852, are still held in the highest admiration.

CHAPTER IX.

PRESERVING THE GRAVESTONES.

Mankind in all ages and in all places has recognized the sanct.i.ty of the burial-place. Among the New Zealanders, when they were first revealed to Europeans as savages, the place of interment was _tapu_, or holy. The wild and warlike Afghanistans have also a profound reverence for their burial-grounds, which they speak of expressively as "cities of the silent." Among the Turks the utmost possible respect is paid to the resting-places of the dead, and nowhere, perhaps (says Mrs. Stone in "G.o.d's Acre"), are the burial-places so beautiful.

The great and increasing size of Turkish cemeteries is due to the repugnance of the people to disturbing the soil where once a body has been laid. The Chinese and the inhabitants of the Sunda Isles (says the authority just quoted) seem to vie with each other in the reverence with which they regard the burial-places of their ancestors, which almost invariably occupy the most beautiful and sequestered sites. The graves are usually overgrown with long gra.s.ses and luxuriantly flowering plants. In like manner the Moors have a particular shrub which overspreads their graves, and no one is permitted to pluck a leaf or a blossom.

The simple Breton people are deeply religious, and their veneration for the dead is intense. They are frequently to be seen--men, women, and children--kneeling on the ground in their churchyards, praying among the graves. It may therefore be well believed that in the period of burial reform which overspread the Continent in the earlier part of the nineteenth century there was great opposition in Brittany to the establishment of remote cemeteries. The thought of burying elsewhere than in the parish churchyard was to the minds of the parishioners a species of impiety. When reasoned with they would answer:

"Our fathers were buried here, and you would separate us from our dead. Let us be buried here, where our kinsfolk can see our graves from their windows, and the children can come at evening to pray."

In vain they were shewn the danger of acc.u.mulating corpses in a place which was usually in the centre of the population. They shook their heads and cried:

"Death comes only by the will of G.o.d."

Possibly, to some extent, this feeling is universal among mankind.

There is in our hearts an innate reverence for the burial-place; we tread by instinct lightly over the sleeping-places of the dead, and look with silent awe upon their tombs. The feeling being part of our humanity, we might suppose it to be universal, and be apt to conclude that, in our more primitive churchyards at least, we should find some effort to preserve the whole or a large proportion of the memorials which are there dedicated to departed merit, hallowed by love and made sacred by sorrow. But it may truthfully be said that of all the headstones (not to speak alone of _decorated_ headstones) which were set up prior to the beginning of the nineteenth century, by far the greater number have disappeared! Indeed the cases in which the old churchyards have been the objects of any care whatever are lamentably few, while attempts to preserve the old gravestones are almost unknown. The ordinary experience is to find the churchyard more or less neglected and forgotten, and the grey and aged stones either sinking into the earth or tottering to their fall. It cannot be imagined that the clergy, the wardens, and the s.e.xtons have failed to see these things; but they have, presumedly, more pressing matters to attend to, and it seems to be n.o.body's business to attend to such ownerless and worthless objects.

Some gravediggers will tell you that the natural destiny of the gravestone is the grave! They will shew you the old fellows slowly descending into the ground, and they have heard the parson say perhaps that the "trembling of the earth" will in time shake them all inevitably out of sight. I have heard it mentioned as an article of belief among s.e.xtons that a hundred years is the fair measure of a head-stone's "life" above ground, but this reckoning is much too short for the evidences, and makes no allowance for variable circ.u.mstances.

In some places, Keston for instance, the church is founded upon a bed of chalk, and out of the chalk the graves are laboriously hewn. It is obvious therefore that the nature of the soil, as it is yielding or impervious, must be a prime factor in the question of survival. It may be granted, however, that our progenitors in selecting their burial-grounds had the same preference for a suitable site as we have in our own day, and, notwithstanding exceptions which seem to shew that the church and not the churchyard was the one thing thought of, the law of a light soil for interments is sufficiently regular to give us an average duration of a gravestone's natural existence. The term "natural" will apply neither to those fortunate ones whose lives are studiously prolonged, nor of course to the majority whose career is wilfully, negligently, or accidentally shortened. But that, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, the stones gradually sink out of sight, and at a certain rate of progression, is beyond a doubt. Two ill.u.s.trations may help the realization of this fact, such as may be seen in hundreds of our churchyards.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 80. BETHNAL GREEN.

Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 81. PLUMSTEAD.

SINKING GRAVESTONES.]

The sketch of Bethnal Green (Fig. 80) was made just as the churchyard was about to undergo a healthy conversion, and it marks a very long period of inaction.

The Plumstead case (Fig. 81), though less extreme, is even more informing, as it seems to measure the rate at which the disappearance goes on; the dates on the three stones coinciding accurately with their comparative depths in the ground. Whether the motion of the earth has any influence in this connection need not now be discussed, because the burying of the gravestones may be accounted for in a simple and feasible manner, without recourse to scientific argument.

It is undoubtedly the burrowing of the worms, coupled with the wasting action of rain and frost, which causes the phenomenon. Instead, however, of the s.e.xton's supposit.i.tious century, the period required for total disappearance may more accurately be regarded as from 200 to 250 years. It has been found by careful observation in a few random cases that the stones subside at the rate of about one foot in forty or fifty years, and, as their ordinary height is from 5 feet to 5 feet 6 inches, we can readily tell, providing the rate rules evenly, the date when any particular stone may be expected to vanish. In confirmation of this theory is the fact that scarcely any headstones are discoverable of a date earlier than 1650, and whenever they have been left to their fate the veterans of 150 years have scarcely more than their heads above ground. Wherever we find otherwise, it may be a.s.sumed that conscientious church officers or pious parishioners have bethought them of the burial-ground, lifted up the old stones and set them once more on their feet. Of recent years there has grown up and been fostered a better feeling for the ancient churchyards, and the ivy-clad churches of Hornsey and Hendon may be cited as examples familiar to Londoners in which the taste engendered by a beautiful edifice has influenced for good its surroundings. In both churchyards are many eighteenth-century stones in excellent preservation. Neither place, however, has yet been "restored" or "reformed" in the modern sense, and there is no reason why it should be. In many places, as the town grows and spreads, it is well to convert the ancient graveyard into a public garden, so that it be decently and reverently done. But this ought never to be undertaken needlessly or heedlessly. There are scruples of individuals to be regarded, and a strong case ought always to exist before putting into effect such a radical change. But it usually happens that transformation is the only remedy, and nothing short of a thorough reaction will rescue G.o.d's Acre from the ruin and contempt into which it has fallen. Yet we should ever remember that, whatever we may do to the surface, it is still the place where our dead fathers rest.

"Earth to earth and dust to dust, Here lie the evil and the just, Here the youthful and the old, Here the fearful and the bold, Here the matron and the maid, In one silent bed are laid."

The utilitarian impulse, though frequently blamed for the "desecration" of our churchyards, is really less accountable for these conversions than the culpable neglect which in too many cases has forced the only measure of correction. Therefore they who would keep the sacred soil unmolested should take heed that it be properly maintained. A churchyard is in hopeful case when we see the mounds carefully levelled, the stones set up in serried ranks, and the turf between rolled smooth and trimmed and swept. There is no outrage in levelling the ground. The Christian feeling which clings to the grave, and even to the gravestone, does not attach to the mound of earth which is wrongly called the grave. This mound is not even a Christian symbol. It is a mere survival of Paganism, being a small copy of the barrow or tumulus, of which we have specimens still standing in various parts of our islands and the Continent, to mark the sepulchres of prehistoric and possibly savage chieftains. No compunction should be, and probably none is, suffered when we remove the grave-mounds, which is indeed the first essential to the protection and beautification of an obsolete burial-place. But, if possible, let the churchyard remain a churchyard; for, of all the several methods which are usually resorted to for "preservation," the best from the sentimental view is that which keeps the nearest to the first intent.

There can be no disputing that a churchyard is in its true aspect when it looks like a churchyard, providing it be duly cared for. Some persons of practical ideas will, however, favour such improvements as will banish the least elegant features of the place and range the more sightly ones midst lawns and flowers; while others, still more thorough, will be satisfied with nothing short of sweeping away all traces of the graves, and transforming the whole s.p.a.ce at one stroke into a public playground. The choice of systems is in some degree a question of environment. Wherever open ground is needed for the health and enjoyment of dwellers in towns, it is now generally conceded that, with certain reservations and under reasonable conditions, disused churchyards--especially such as are neglected and deformed--shall in all possible cases be transferred from the closed ledger of the dead to the current account of the living.

The following lines, which were written upon the restoration of Cheltenham Churchyard, may be applied to most of such instances:

"Sleep on, ye dead!

'Tis no rude hand disturbs your resting-place; But those who love the spot have come at length To beautify your long-neglected homes.

How loud ye have been speaking to us all!

But the mammon and the fading pleasures Of this busy world hath made us deaf.

* * * Forgive the past!

Henceforth flowers shall bloom upon the surface Of your dwellings. The lilac in the spring Shall blossom, and the sweet briar shall exhale Its fragrant smell. E'en the drooping fuchsia Shall not be wanting to adorn your tombs; While the weeping willow, pointing downwards, Speaks significantly to the living, That a grave awaits us all."

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 82. CHESHUNT.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 83. HATFIELD.]