The grave yards of London : being an exposition of the physical and moral consequences inseparably connected with our unchristian and pestilential custom of depositing the dead in the midst of the living : with the examinations of the author, upon this highly important subject, before a Select Committee of the House of Commons / by George Alfred Walker.

  • Walker, George Alfred, 1807-1884.
Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The grave yards of London : being an exposition of the physical and moral consequences inseparably connected with our unchristian and pestilential custom of depositing the dead in the midst of the living : with the examinations of the author, upon this highly important subject, before a Select Committee of the House of Commons / by George Alfred Walker. 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.

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    I am perfectly convinced that from many private burial grounds, in low and crowded neighbourhoods, where the lowness of the fees has occasioned an immense influx of funerals, no returns whatever have been made, or returns purposely inaccurate, have been furnished. The returns from some places I could name would be instructive. From official documents it also appears that the number of bodies buried in the metropolis From 1741 to 1765, inclusive, were 588,523 1766 .. 1792 605,832 1793 .. 1813 402,595 1814 .. 1837 508,162 2,105,112 I have not been able to procure any satisfactory accounts of the numbers interred in burying grounds unconnected with the Estab- lished Church. By some parties information was refused, by others the records of the place were stated to have been lost or neglected, and in some cases the parties most interested in suppressing, had alone the power to communicate. The number must, however, be enormously vast, seeing that there are, in various parts of the metro- polis, about 450 places of worship, of which nearly 200 belong to the Establishment; there are 47 for Baptists, 6 for the Society of Friends, upwards of 100 for Independents, 32 for Wesleyan Methodists, 4 for Swedenborgians, 6 for Unitarians, 4 for Welsh Calvinists, and numer- ous others, for different classes of Protestant Dissenters. There are, also, 9 chapels in connection with the Church of Scotland, 14 Roman Catholic chapels, 7 synagogues, and 18 foreign Protestant churches and chapels. CHAP. II. DESCRIPTION OF SOME OF THE METROPOLITAN BURYING GROUNDS. From the following descriptions, the reader will be able to form a faint estimate of the dangers by which he is surrounded :— Clement’s Lane.—This is a narrow thoroughfare on the eastern side of Clare Market; it extends from Clare Market to the Strand, and is surrounded by places, from which are continually given off' emanations from animal putrescence. The back windows of the houses on the east side of the lane look into a burying ground called the “ Green Ground,” in Portugal Street, presently to be described; on the west side the windows permit the odour of another burying place a private one, called Enon Chapel—to perflate the houses; at the bottom—the south end—of this Lane, is another burying place, belonging to the Alms Houses, within a few feet of the Strand, and in the centre of the Strand are the burying ground and vaults of St. Clement Danes; in addition to which, there are several slaughter houses in the immediate neighbourhood : so that in a distance of about two hundred yards, in a direct line there are four burying grounds; and the living here breathe on all sides an atmosphere im- pregnated with the odour of the dead. The inhabitants of this nar- row thoroughfare arc very unhealthy; nearly every room in every ouse is occupied by a separate family. Typhus fever in its aggra-