Report of the sub-committee on intramural interments / Manchester and Salford Sanitary Association.

  • Manchester and Salford Sanitary Association.
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: Report of the sub-committee on intramural interments / Manchester and Salford Sanitary Association. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    5/14 (page 5)
    which it appears much easier to perpetrate than to prove. In fact, it is more than probable that burials do take place in many cases where the laws would expressly forbid it; that family graves are opened, and made use of for the interment of individuals who have no right to the use of such graves; indeed, had it been possible strictly to enforce the orders and regulations upon the several burying grounds, the necessity for the establishment of some general Cemeteries would, in all probability, long ago have been forced on public attention. A suspicious and ill-boding air of secrecy pervades the entire business of burials. It does not, for instance, clearly appear how or by what parties the observance of the Orders in Council and the injunctions of the Secretary of State is controlled and secured; whether the requisite depth is adhered to, and whether the coffins are em¬ bedded in powdered charcoal, and separtely entombed in an air-tight manner; whether the grave just opened is, or is not, one of the existing family vaults or walled graves ; whether the dead about to be interred was, or was not, a bond fide member of the same family, &c. Having thus briefly alluded to the lax manner, in which the govern¬ ment regulations are enforced, we proceed to sketch the histoiy of the question of providing a Cemetery for the City of Manchester. In November, 1854, the Churchwardens circulated a “Report (Private and Confidential) on Parish Burial Grounds.” We there find the following statementIn 1848 the burial ground at Walker’s Croft was closed; and since that period, the parish of Manchester has been without any parochial burial ground“ In the present state and future prospects of the parish of Manchester, as it regards existing plans of sepulture for its inhabitants, the church¬ wardens deem it their duty to place upon record the past and existing difficulties which have been or are in the way of their taking vigorous measures to procure a parish burial ground.” “ Recent legislation places the duty of providing burial grounds in the different Poor Law Unions, or empowers the Council of incorporated Boroughs to provide places of sepulture; in either case the providing of burial grounds is taken out of the hands of the churchwardens of this parish.” The Report concludes by recommending the appropriation of the receipts