Prospectus of the General Cemetery Company : for providing places of interment, secure from violation, inoffensive to public health and decency, and ornamental to the metropolis : with papers illustrative of the subject.

  • General Cemetery Co.
Date:
1830
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Prospectus of the General Cemetery Company : for providing places of interment, secure from violation, inoffensive to public health and decency, and ornamental to the metropolis : with papers illustrative of the subject. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    15/50 (page 13)
    of quick lime over burial-grounds, has, in many instances, been found quite ineffectual to overcome the powerful nature of the corrupt matter constituting the soil itself. That your Petitioner is prepared to bring evidence in sup- port of his statements, and to disclose a state of things, at once shocking to humanity and highly dangerous to the public health. Further, your Petitioner would remind your Honourable House, that many public improvements have, since the pro- mulgation of your Petitioner's plan, been carried into effect, and that the church, with the vaults and burying-ground of St. Catherine near the Tower, were in consequence wholly swept away; and also that a burial-ground belonging to the parish of St. Andrew, Holborn, whereon is now the New Farringdon Market, has been removed; that a portion of the churchyard of St. Martin in the Fields has been dug out, and that the work was stopped by order of His Majesty's Commis- sioners of Woods and Forests, and owing, your Petitioner firmly believes, to the danger of prosecuting it. And also, that it has been resolved that the parish church, vaults, &c. of Saint Dunstan in Fleet Street, shall be wholly removed. That your Petitioner, in the year 1825, entered the vaults of the said church, and found that the dead were deposited there in coffins of wood only, and saw the coffins below crushed by others placed upon them, and the remains of a recently in- terred corpse forced in part out of the coffin, and in a state of decomposition too disgusting to be described. That your Petitioner considers he is performing the part of a good citizen in calling the attention of your Honourable House to this important subject; and your Petitioner would remind your Honourable House, that the admirable change adopted in the French capital was not the result of revolu- tionary movements, but arose from the scourging epidemic disorders which so frequently affected that capital. That your Petitioner has communicated with the parochial clergy, and has found many of that much to be respected body highly favourable to his design ; and your Petitioner is willing