Candid neighbour—Well, though they is yours, Mrs Mucker, I carn’t say as I thinks much on ’em.
Mrs Mucker—Well, no, perhaps they don’t look up to much, but ‘pearances is deceitful, mum, and them there children is insured for over a hundred pounds.
Thames Star, 23 September 1892: p. 1
A very interesting portion of Mr. Chadwick’s Report is that which relates to the Burial Societies established by the working classes, for which subscriptions are readily obtained, when they cannot be induced to subscribe either for their own relief in sickness, or for the education of their children, or for any other object. In the town of Preston there are six large societies, in which nearly thirty thousand men, women, and children are enrolled; and the principal club comprehends fifteen thousand one hundred and sixty-four members, and expends above 1000l. a year, raised in weekly contributions, from a half-penny to a penny and three half-pence and twopence per week. In London there are about one hundred of these Burial Clubs, comprising from one hundred to eight hundred members each.
In most cases, the concocters of these schemes are an undertaker and a publican. They are conducted on the most erroneous principles: members of different ages contribute the same sum; and the society is often dissolved by the younger members (if they have a majority) sharing the stock, when they find that the rapid deaths of more aged persons threaten to lead to a similar termination. The meetings of these societies are held at public-houses, and lead to habits of drinking. It is calculated that the business of the Burial Societies at Walsall is not transacted without an expenditure of 1200l. a year in “drink.”
But the evil does not stop here; for it is only a short time since some cases were brought to light in courts of justice, in which the deaths of the children were traced to the parents, the inducement to the commission of the horrible and unnatural crime being the readiness with which the allowances were obtained from burial clubs, in several of which the children had been entered. In one case a man had insured such allowances in nineteen different clubs. Mr. Chadwick remarks, that in life insurances the legislature has endeavoured to arrest the dangerous tendency of insuring beyond the interest; and he suggests that, in the case of burial societies, a short provision might be made prohibiting payments beyond the actual cost of interment, and directing the return of the subscriptions where they have been given to more than one club. This would, however, be directly at variance with the interest of the undertaker, the master-spirit in these associations, and who, on the death of a mechanic, endeavours, in the first instance, to ascertain of how many societies the deceased was a member, and then arranges the funeral accordingly; so that instead of the family of the deceased being benefited by his foresight, his savings are expended by the undertaker for his own profit; and the most vulgar feelings are gratified by all the costly and senseless paraphernalia of a “beautiful” funeral, as persons even in the class above them are in the habit of terming these tasteless exhibitions.
The lowest average price of funerals amongst the working classes is about 41. for adults, including a good strong elm coffin, bearers to carry the corpse to the grave, pall, and “fittings” for mourners. For children the average cost is 30s.; but these charges do not include ground and burial fees. For a tradesman of the lowest class, a class in a condition not much beyond that of a mechanic, the expense varies from 101. to 121.; and for a child would be about 5l. Amongst the middle classes an ordinary funeral, burial fees included, varies from 50/. to 701. In providing on these occasions “what is customary,” the undertakers have methodized a system, from which it is difficult to depart, although in their hands the solemnity is conducted with most egregious violations of common sense, of which they themselves are not aware, nor are the public; but the following question, addressed to an intelligent undertaker, fully brings out the absurdity of the custom which they have succeeded in establishing:—”Are you aware,” it was asked, “that the array of funerals commonly made by undertakers is strictly the heraldic array of a baronial funeral, the two men who stand at the door being supposed to be the two porters of the castle, with their staves, in black; the man who heads the procession, wearing a scarf, being a representative of a herald-at-arms: the man who carries a plume of feathers on his head being an esquire, who bears the shield and casque with its plume of feathers; the pallbearers, with batons, being representatives of knights-companions-at-arms; the men walking with wands being supposed to represent gentlemen-ushers, with their wands?” To this question the answer of course was, “No, I am not aware of it.” It is these nonessential parts of the ceremony which render funeral expenses so heavy, and which, amongst the middle classes, frequently lead to the impoverishment of the survivors. The cost of the mutes (“the two porters of the castle”) varies from 18s. to 30s. each; and when they are attired in silk scarfs or “fittings,” including hat-bands and gloves, the sum of five guineas is charged: and half this sum for the person who walks with a scarf. The charge for the feathers borne on the head before the hearse, and the “fittings” of the man who carries them, is about three guineas and a half; and for each of the men who bear batons about a guinea; and each man bearing a wand about the same sum. There are, besides, charges for “velvets” attached to the hearse, including feathers, and feathers to the horses, the cost of which varies from ten to fifteen guineas; and from one to four guineas is charged for the pall. A silk scarf of three yards and a half, and a silk hat-band and black kid gloves, are in many instances given to the clergyman who performs the funeral service; the same to the clerk; and in order to increase his gains, the undertaker bestows a perquisite of the same nature on the sexton; though it is usual to compound the matter by giving to clergyman, clerk, and sexton money instead. The number of men employed at a “respectable” funeral is about twenty; for if the coffin be a leaden one, it requires shout eight men to bear it. In the case of funerals of persons of “moderate respectability,” the number of attendants would be about fourteen. The expense in the former case would be about 100l, and in the latter about 60l. About 50l. would be a low average for the ordinary expense of tradesmen’s funerals; and of the children of this class, below the age of ten, about 14l. Of persons of the condition of a gentleman, 150l., would be a low average; and for a child of this class about 30l. The funeral expenses of persons of rank and title vary from 500l. to 1500l., but a large part of this cost is incurred in the removal of the body to the family vault, in a distant part of the country, by a long cavalcade moving by very slow stages; and here the railways have diminished the expense, in some cases, to the extent of 500l. Out of 5l. expended for the common funeral of an adult artizan in London, about 15s. will be for the burial dues; and of this 15s. the clergyman will receive about 3s.
To persons of the condition of the widows of officers in the army or navy, or of the legal profession, or of persons of the rank of gentry who have but limited incomes, the expenses of funerals often subject them to severe privations for the rest of their lives. These expenses are often incurred equally against the wishes of the deceased and of the survivors, and originate in the circumstance that the funeral arrangements and the determination of what is “proper,” and what customs shall be maintained, fall to those who have a direct interest in a profuse expenditure. One case is mentioned of a clergyman’s widow who was left in narrow circumstances, and conceiving it her duty to have a respectable funeral, she gave general orders to that effect; but in the vocabulary of the undertaker respectability means expensiveness, and the expenses of her husband’s funeral cost the widow 110l. A case is mentioned (in the circular of a respectable undertaker) of a widow who stated that her husband’s funeral cost upwards of 100l. (all the money she possessed), and on being asked how she could incur such an expense, her reply was, that she ordered the undertaker to provide what was respectable, and to avoid expense. An executor who had ordered a coffin and service of the ” most simple description,” conformably to the intentions of the deceased, expecting the coffin to cost not more than 5l., having, under peculiar circumstances, occasion to call for the bill previously to the interment, found, to his surprise, that instead of 5l., the charge for the coffin amounted to nearly 201. “What,” he says, “could be done? we could not turn the body out of the coffin: I would have paid double rather than have disturbed the peace of the house on that occasion.” The circumstances attending a death encourage extortionate charges, and are no less favourable to complete impunity: and another reason for the success of the system of expensive funerals arises from their being so frequently paid out of trust-funds of the higher and middle classes. It is high time that our funeral customs were subjected to a strict scrutiny, and efforts made by the intelligent portion of the public to get rid of the superfluous sort of mockery which is imposed upon them, under the plea of its being “customary,” by a class whose taste it seems absurd in the last degree to follow….
Mr. Chadwick’s analysis of the class of persons in the metropolis engaged in the performance of services connected with the burial of the dead shows that, notwithstanding the immense aggregate expenditure, the business is not in a sound state. The number of persons whose sole business is that, of undertakers, whose names are enumerated in the ‘Post-Office Directory,’ is 275; but it appears that the real service is performed chiefly by about sixty furnishing undertakers, who compete with each other in furnishing the supplies at a moderate rate to a multitude of interior tradesmen, probably exceeding one thousand, amongst whom the excessive profits arising from extortionate charges are thus irregularly distributed. Many of the journeymen who form the superfluous retinue of attendants at a “respectable” funeral, place the insignia of undertakers in their window for the sake of the profits of one or two funerals a year. Some of the most respectable undertakers have eight or ten funerals a day, and some have two or three; but there are eight or nine undertakers waiting for the chance of every private funeral; and as the majority have a much smaller number than the minority, they are the more severely driven to charge their expenses on a small number of funerals. One man who called himself an undertaker, by reason of his being employed as “bearer”‘ at funerals, and who, from accident or management, contrived to get into his hands the business of two or three funerals in a year, has been heard to say that he had got as much profit out of the funeral of an artizan as would provide him with a new suit of clothes.
The question of how the evils connected with the present system of interments are to be diminished, we must still reserve for another number.
THE PENNY MAGAZINE OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE DIFFUSION OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE, Charles Knight, March 9, 1844: pp. 94-96
Chris Woodyard is the author of A is for Arsenic: An ABC of Victorian Death, The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead. And visit her newest blog The Victorian Book of the Dead.
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