Report from the Select Committee on Improvement of the Health of Towns, together with the minutes of evidence, appendix, and index. : Effect of internment of bodies in towns / Ordered, by the House of Commons, to be printed, 14 June 1842.
- Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on Improvement of the Health of Towns.
- Date:
- [1842?]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report from the Select Committee on Improvement of the Health of Towns, together with the minutes of evidence, appendix, and index. : Effect of internment of bodies in towns / Ordered, by the House of Commons, to be printed, 14 June 1842. 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.
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![Mr. H. Helsdon. attached to no place at the time, but it has been since attached to the church T called St. James's New Church, in the Curtain-road ; that is the ground I buried 17 March 1842. ^jjg greatest number in on one occasion, in Hol3^well-lane. 12. Is this plan of interment general, or was it only on that particular occa- sion ?—I think it is pretty general ; the printed statistics with which I was fur- nished by Mr. Walker will show it is a public and open acknowledgment, that in a certain portion of the burial-grounds for the lower orders, it is generally understood that a grave shall be opened, a public grave, covered with planks, but never filled up until it is covered almost to surfeiture with bodies. 13. Lord Mahon.'] Do you apply that to other large towns as well as London ? —No, to London ; my knowledge is confined to London. 14. Mr. Kemble.'] Do you mean it to confine to those large burjdng-places only, or to include parochial churchyards also ?—I apply it to parochial churchyards also ; the printed statistical accounts with reference to fees, and so on, give a statement to the public that the public graves are to be gradually filled up. 15. Do you know that of your own knowledge ?—I know it from the printed statements submitted to Government, 16. Colonel Acton.] How long would it take before one was sufiiciently filled to be covered over ?—That would depend on the number of applications made on the average; in some instances it would take a fortnight, in other instances it would take a little longer. 17. Mr. Kemble.'] You were understood to say you officiated at the New Bun- hill-fields ground ; does your knowledge extend to the general parochial church- yards connected with parish churches ?—No, not personally. 18. Chairman.] Can you state whether you ever found any disagreeable smell or effluvia arising from those grounds with which you have been connected ?—^ After the first year had passed away, for I oflS.ciated in that ground about four years during the heat of the summer, when those graves were re-opened on the Sunday afternoon, when most of the funerals take place, in consequence of their being chiefly among the Irish and the lower classes of society, by reason of their burying rather cheaper than at other grounds, they were exceedingly offensive ; the swarms of some kind of black fly, which I am not able to explain the nature of, but I suppose generated in this house of corruption, were certainly so off'ensive, and the noisome stench arising from those deep graves was very unpleasant, so that it was difficult in the heat of the summer for any man of sensibility to dis- charge the duties necessarily devolving upon him. 19. Speaking from your own knowledge, what is the effect of such exhalations on the gravediggers or persons obliged to be in the immediate neighbour- hood ?—So far as my own personal knowledge goes, I can speak only to one, and that was a gravedigger in New Bunhill-fields; I have known him obliged to be drawn out of those very deep graves after being in half an hour or three quarters of an hour, in consequence of his being overpowered with the heat and the stench accumulated there, and more particularly in opening those graves where ten or twelve corpses had already been interred; and where they began to run, the offensive exhalation was dreadful. 20. You mention that there was a great number in each grave; what was the average number in each grave ?—I should think in all those public graves, as they are called, they would average from 18 to 20. 21. Colonel Acton.] What depth is the grave?—They are generally dug from 25 to 30 feet deep. 1 wish to explain one matter, that the earth is thrown up on each side the grave two feet deep, so that the last coffin deposited in the grave looks tolerably deep ; but when the whole of the earth, or sand or gravel is thrown aside and the works all removed, and the earth is again levelled with its common surface, I am quite certain, beyond all mistake, they have not been more than two feet below the surface of the ground ; to all appearance it looks four or five feet, but when it is levelled by the removal of the earth, it is very thin; with the banks up it looks differently. 22. Mr. Kemble.] You were understood to speak of the eff'ect the first year; what was the eff'ect the subsequent years ?—Every subsequent summer this offen- sive effluvia increased, and even the sight of the coffins, for the fact is that as the coffins lie one on another in succession from the bottom to the top, the next grave that is opened alongside of that, to make the very most of every inch of the speculation of any proprietor of such ground; nay, I have been witness, from Sunday](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21365386_0020.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
