Report to the board of police of Glasgow, by the medical officer and the master of works, on intramural burying grounds.

  • Gairdner, W. T. (William Tennant), Sir, 1824-1907.
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report to the board of police of Glasgow, by the medical officer and the master of works, on intramural burying grounds. 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.

    5/8 (page 5)
    laws, and where, therefore, it becomes the duty of the authorities, on public grounds, to shut out the public from access to their ancient places of sepulture. In towns of moderate size this can be done without extreme incon- venience; but in very large cities, where live or six miles from the centre is probably the least distance that could be recommended as the site of a new burying ground; where, moreover, the cemeteries at present existing are under con- stant temptations to accommodate the poor in a way injurious to the public interest, it appears to us most clearly the duty of a great corporation to take a large and enlightened view of the whole subject by removing the interment of the dead as much as possible out of the hands of speculative com- panies. Had the Corporation of Glasgow been possessed of extramural burying grounds, unobjectionably placed, in which ample facilities were given to the poor of Glasgow to bury their dead with decency, and at a moderate expense, it would have been comparatively easy to recommend the closing of the present intramural burying grounds. At present we can only see our way to the following recom- mendations, which we beg to submit, not as the best possible, but as the best attainable without an Act of Parliament of the kind alluded to above: — First. We are of opinion that no extension of the present burial area should be permitted within the jurisdiction of the Board. It is possible that this may be considered too stringent, but we would nevertheless press it very earnestly as our decided conviction. Not one of the existing intramural burying grounds is so placed that an application for leave to place a neiu cemetery there would be listened to for a moment; why, then, should any extension be allowed? Even Sighthill Cemetery and the Necropolis will soon be completely surrounded by houses and public works; and under no circumstances could the burial of persons in these neighbour- hoods on a much extended scale be prevented from becoming a nuisance to a greater or less extent within a very few years.