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Introduction: Cemeteries

Julie Rugg

To cite this article: Julie Rugg (2003) Introduction: Cemeteries, , 8:2, 107-112, DOI:
10.1080/1357627031000087361

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Mortality, Vol. 8, No. 2, 2003

Introduction: Cemeteries
JULIE RUGG
University of York, U K

Introduction
The subject of the disposal of the dead and of cemeteries in particular has
tended to be rather peripheral within the wider death arena both in the UK
and abroad, which is perhaps a reflection of the narrow lens that has hitherto
been concentrated on the study of cemeteries. Without a doubt the recent work
completed by Doris Francis, Leonie Kellaher and Georgina Neophytou
(Francis et al., 2001, 2003) has substantially broadened the scope of issues
that can be addressed through use of material collected within the context of a
study of local cemeteries, and to a large degree the exhortation contained in
this introduction comprises a big push at what is an opening door. Other
important recent studies have included the selection of chiefly archaeological
essays collected by Margaret Cox (Cox, 1998) and the recent extended study
of Kensal Green Cemetery in London (Curl, 2001, reviewed in this volume).
Mortality itself has also constituted a valuable conduit for the publication of
papers that have framed and explored further contexts for cemetery studies
(Rugg, 1998, 2000). It is hoped that this special issue of Mortality will
demonstrate and contribute to the posing of a more diverse range of questions
about cemeteries and their significance in both time and space. At the same
time, the papers will illustrate how far the study of cemeteries can illuminate
some very central concerns to a number of debates evident within the broader
thanatological field. With two exceptions, all the papers here introduce material
from recently completed doctoral theses. The authors are to be applauded for
contributing to this special edition at a particularly stresshl time in anyone's
academic career.
This introduction has two aims: to draw out some key themes and research
directions suggested by this collection of papers; and to highlight the research
methods and new source materials that are used, and recommend their
employment in other cemetery-related contexts.

Themes
There are a number of principal themes suggested by the papers contained in this
special issue, but this introduction will concentrate on four. First, cemeteries

Correspondence to: Julie Rugg, Cemetery Research Group, University of York, Heslington,
York, YO1 0 5DD, UK; E-mail: jrlo@york.ac.uk

ISSN 1357-6275 (print) ISSN 1469-9885 (online)/O3/020107-06 O 2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/1357627031000087361
 Julie Rugg

provide a context to allow extended study of control of the corpse. There have been
long-established debates on the medicalization of death and the professionaliza-
tion of funerary services, illustrating the ways in which institutions have absorbed
the care of the corpse as both a function and service (see for example, Prior, 1989).
For example, families that might traditionally have themselves laid out the bodies
of their relatives or entrusted the task to a known member of the community
(Adams, 1993) have in the more recent past had a limited say in the immediate
fate of their relative's remains. This situation is now subject to change, even to
reverse. However, debate on the control of the corpse is rarely, if ever, extended to
discussion of what happens to the body in the medium and more especially longer
term. Two papers in this collection indicate that consideration of the longer-term
'management' of the corpse gives rise to h i t f u l areas of research.
Many historical accounts overlook the fact that cemeteries contain bodies that
continued to require attention after burial. The new nineteenth-century
cemeteries generally granted burial 'in perpetuity' with a promise of no future
disturbance; the elite monuments that have been studied frequently in the past
certainly conveyed a majestic finality. However, the rituals and practices that
followed the interment of the poor has received less attention from historians.
Cemeteries generally shified the locale of mass burial for the poor from the
periphery of the graveyard to the periphery of the cemetery. Murray indicates that
in the newly-established nineteenth-century cemeteries in New South Wales,
Australia the pauper corpse continued to be perceived as a problem for sanitary
reformers even after cemeteries were established. Promotion of the 'cemetery
ideal' carried marked internal contradictions that reformers did not themselves
recognize. At the same time as embracing the civilizing opportunities for elaborate
memorials and morally uplifting landscapes that cemeteries provided, reformers
deplored the insanitary practices of pauper burial that the cemeteries had
themselves perpetuated. As with wider urban sanitary reform, blame was
principally attached to the poor themselves for living (and laying their dead) in
slum conditions.
On a similar theme, Strange's study is based on analysis of burial board records
in the UK at the end of the nineteenth century. Her paper considers the strategies
employed by the poorer classes in managing their own grave spaces, and so
holding on to control of what happened to the remains of their relatives. Strange
argues that showing respect for the dead rather than emulating middle-class
respectability was a stronger motivational force in dictating the rituals attached to
funerals amongst the working classes. Indeed, the deep significance of control of
the grave is indicated by the purchase, sale and gifting of burial rights which was
commonplace among people on low incomes. This narrative offers a challenge to
what has become the orthodox interpretation of pauper funerals: that the poor
were distressed by their inability to emulate 'respectable' funerary practices
(Richardson, 1987). Strange argues, by contrast, that such practices were
essentially middle-class, and rather than seeking to copy these behaviours the
working classes formulated their own distinctive working class practices and
rituals.
 Introduction 109

A second theme evident in the collection of papers is consideration of

cemeteries as a n appropriate environment for bereaved people. A plethora of studies
has been dedicated to analysis of the eighteenth and nineteenth-century
cemetery architecture and landscape (see, for example, Etlin, 1994). Meanwhde,
relatively little energy has been directed at consideration of modern landscapes,
the ways in which they may reflect attitudes towards death, and the ways in
which they aim to provide an appropriate environment for the dead and for the
bereaved. Clayden and Woudstra discuss a series of modern European cemetery
landscapes and indicate some of the principles implemented by designers: for
example, an attempt to reintegrate burial into the central urban landscape in
Christian Zalm's Cemetery at Almere-Haven. Death in the twentieth century
still lacks a viable international history. The extended study of individual
cemeteries throughout Europe and the meanings attached to their designed
components would provide essential material on which to construct such a
narrative.
Cemeteries are generally characterized by the fact that they provide a context
for the erection of memorials that offer some indicator of the individuality of the
deceased (Rugg, 2000). Buckham's detailed study of York Cemetery (United
Kingdom) places a welcome focus on the ostensibly mundane and commonplace
memorials that are contained in the vast majority of nineteenth-century
cemeteries. Buckham argues that commentators have in the past rested on the
untested belief that since cemeteries offered the theoretical opportunity to express
status and religious identity, then memorialization followed those lines. In
actuality, extensive analysis of memorial difference indicates a more complex
pattern of individual expression than might be anticipated. York Cemetery shows
no evidence of memorial difference between religious denominations. In addition,
the changing memorial patterns for children indicates an ambivalence with respect
to the status of children that is at odds with the idealized domesticity felt to be
characteristic of the Victorian period. Similarly, the 'ideal' of a family unit
indicated on a headstone may bear little relation to the actuality of the bodies
contained in the grave so marked.
A third theme shows that considerable questions have become attached to
what might be termed the 'Whig' narrative of cemetery development. The
unspoken assumption appears to have been made that the progress of burial
reform in the nineteenth century was largely unproblematic. Three papers in
this collection offer some revision to this view. Queiroz and Rugg indicate the
considerable complexity attached to cemetery development in Portugal in the
nineteenth century, demonstrating that burial reform and cemetery establish-
ment did not follow a clear linear progression. Changes in burial practice were
slow to attract support, in some instances the use of cemeteries was provoked
only by extreme crisis, and communities in some instances reverted back to
traditional practices, so abandoning use of cemeteries in the process. Similarly,
as has been seen, Murray indicates that cemetery establishment did not
necessarily herald an end to poor burial practices. In their review of
contemporary cemetery policy, Hussein and Rugg contend that even by the
 Julie Rugg

late twentieth century, the system of burial provision in London was still in
need of radical reform in order for the capital to meet demand for burial space.
All these papers underline the need for more comparative local and
international studies, to forge an understanding of the varied chronologies of
cemetery development.
A fourth theme is that cemeteries present dynamic landscapes, the meanings of
which change over time. Francis' 'Classics Reviewed' section in this edition
provides a timely revisiting of the work of Warner and Sloane on US
cemeteries, both works which acknowledged the changing significance of
cemetery landscapes (Warner, 1959; Sloane, 1995). Merridale's study of
cemeteries in Revolutionary Russia demonstrates that the sacred andlor
political nature of a particular burial site has no necessary permanence. The
old burial grounds attached to Moscow's monasteries became the subject of
vandalism by soldiers and officials, whilst the burial sites of revolutionary
martyrs were afforded a devoted protection. The political importance attached
to the dead shifted: Russian Revolutionaries created pantheons for the
edification of the population by burying together the bodies of the
'acceptable' poets, writers and politicians that had been taken from cemeteries
that were then destroyed. The dichotomy between the highly visible and
revered dead, and the disappeared and dishonoured dead is never more
evident than at times of political upheaval. Yet these extreme positions are
themselves subject to flux: Memdale's collection of oral testimonies indicate
that despite the changes, some traditional funerary practices have been
retained and revisited.

Methods
The collection of papers here also demonstrates the value of a number of
hitherto little-used research methods. First, historical archaeology is a relatively
new discipline, but one that is uniquely suited to the study of themes in
modern death. Buckham uses standard archaeological recording and analysing
techniques for monuments, but then mames this data with documentary
material collected from the burial registers. A richer vein of analysis ensues,
particularly given the concentration in this study on the ostensibly undiffer-
entiated memorials that too often have been overlooked in preference to
detailed study of more elaborate and exceptional individual monuments. This
method will be invaluable to the study of charting similarity and difference in
commemoration at local sites.
Second, Merridale's paper employs a combination of historical documents and
oral histories to disclose the changing burial practices in the context of
Revolutionary Russia. The work of Francis et al. (2001) also based on an
extended series of interviews with people in cemeteries, indicates the immense
value that is attached to studies that understand funerary practices within the
cemetery, and it is hoped that further studies will make use of this method. Under
the new Best Value regime in the UK, local government authorities will be obliged
 Introduction 111

to consult with service users about the ways in which they deliver their services,
and talking to people who use cemeteries may emerge as an essential basis for
improvements to cemetery policy.
Third, these papers are an encouragement to make broader use of local
historical material, to 'embed' the cemetery in its immediate spacial and historical
context. Murray and Strange in particular have shown that a wide range of sources
are available in archive offices that illustrate the meanings and usage of cemeteries
at an almost day-to-day level, thus bringing an immediacy and a better
understanding of the ways in which communities dealt with funerary matters.
This sort of material is intrinsic to the task of constructing wider meta-narratives
of cultural responses to death.
Finally, fourth, Rugg and Hussein in particular show the value of collaboration
between cemetery and crematoria practitioners and academics in exploring death
within the context of social policy. Recent and on-going studies of current
cemetery and crematoria practices have required close co-operation between
scholars and local government officers. In this as in many other areas of death
research, academics have learned from practitioners and have directed research
findings into a fuller understanding of, and improvements to, services delivered to
bereaved people. Davies & Shaw (1995) demonstrated regional difference in
attitudes towards and use of cemeteries within the UK, indicating that more local
studies are required: recommendations for policy change must be sensitive to
variations in local usage.

Conclusion
In conclusion, these papers demonstrate two fruitful directions for further studies.
The papers indicate some frameworks for the collection of basic narrative
information on the progress of cemetery establishment, usage and their changing
meanings over time, that can be used to complete comparative local, national and
international studies. Finally, the papers reveal the immense value that can be
attached to the detailed analysis of actual activity at either a single site or a small
collection of sites, to enable a shift away from 'ideal' and 'theoretical' uses. It is
clear that each cemetery provides a complex of landscapes and opportunities for
diverse groups to express both their emotions and their allegiances; the study of
cemeteries is now beginning to appreciate this fact, and is taking great strides
forward.

Acknowledgements
Particular thanks are expressed to Peter Jupp and David Field for offering
encouragement and support throughout the process of producing this special
edition. Thanks also to peer reviewers who offered considered and constructive
comment. Gratitude is also expressed to Professor Janet Ford, who offers
continued support for cemetery research under the umbrella of the Centre for
Housing Policy at the University of York.
 Julie Rugg

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RUGG,J. (1998). 'A few remarks on modern sepulture': current trends and new directions in
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Biographical note
Dr Julie Rugg has been conducting cemetery research at the University of York since 1991. She
continues the work of the Cemetery Research Group, set up at the University by a cross-
departmental consortium in that year. Her principal interests lie in cemetery history and the
development of cemetery policy.