As I was walking through various parks in Glasgow and Edinburgh, I felt compelled to stop in

order to read the memorialisation messages that many benches had in honour of people who
had passed away. Memorial benches in the United Kingdom are very prominent in public
spaces such as parks or gardens and they elicit an odd response in me. I am not religious, nor
do I personally know these people to whom the benches were dedicated. Nevertheless, I view
these benches as sacred. This fascination is not uncommon, as demonstrated by webpages like
Open Benches and blogs like Memorial Bench Stories. This essay intends to explore the ways
in which the secular and the religious interact in memorial benches and how the benches,
apparently secular objects, convey religious nuances.

I took four images of a memorial bench that honours

a deceased married couple. The bench was one of
many, and I chose this one because it had more than
one plaque in it and because it was close to a
pedestrian path. The bench is simple, made of dark
wood and three or four people can sit at the same time
in this bench. The material it is made of, wood, gives
the bench a commonplace character, representing
stability and equilibrium (Kellaher & Worpole, 2010).
It is situated to the side of an accessible path for
pedestrians which suggests that it might be visited
daily by strangers and mourners alike, perhaps even
located in a route that the bereaved take daily
(Kellaher & Worpole, 2010). Kellaher & Warpole
(2010) indicate that some memorial benches are
situated as close to the former home as possible. This
locality is enforced so that the bench can offer a
continued relationship with the bereaved, whether it
is with close family and friends or the wider circle of
acquaintances. Simultaneously, these memorial
benches can be viewed as gifts to the community or
neighbourhood as they provide a utility and more
importantly, publicly acknowledge that the deceased
was a part of the community (Kellaher & Worpole,
2010). In rare occasions the benches
are located far away, to distance the
deceased from places and people that
were present in their everyday lives
(Wylie, 2009). This removed location
indicates a farewell. Maddrell &
Sidaway (2010) explain that benches
and their locality can create a ‘third
emotional space’ which is betwixt
home and the cemetery/crematorium.
This place allows for a manifestation
of a private feeling (i.e., grief) in a
public setting (i.e., gardens).
However, this means that everyday
landscape, such as a park, will
become a deathscape: ‘a place
associated with death and for the
dead, imbued with meanings and
associations’ (Maddrell & Sidaway,
2010, p. 4)

The bench is situated in West Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh, near the Scottish National
Gallery, the Scott Monument, and the Waverley train station. The gardens are well kept, and
visited by thousands of tourists annually, since it is located near so many historical sites. The
gardens are also home to various war memorials such as ‘The Call 1914’ and ‘Wojtek the
Bear’. I highlight this fact because there seems to be a distinction between the bench memorials
and other type of memorials. This distinction will be explored further along. The inscriptions,
in metal, are arranged side by side, memorialising a married couple: John Burrows and Jessie
Fraser Burrows. The same message “always remembered” commemorates both of them,
although Jessie’s inscription seems like an extension of her husband’s inscription which starts
with “In loving memory of…”, as he died 24 years before her. As Tony Walter (1999)
illustrates, the inscriptions tell us information about the deceased, but also about who placed
this memorialisation. The woman’s inscription also adds the name “Janet” and she was
probably known by acquaintances by this name. This hints that family or friends wrote and
placed these inscriptions. It is possible, due to the dates of death, that Jessie participated in
arranging John’s plaque with other people who were close to John. The inscription has no
mention of possible religious beliefs or affiliation, although there were other memorial benches
in that same gardens that included Bible verses and other religious symbols.

Memorial benches are an unexplored topic in anthropology of religion, prioritising the study
of other types of memorials like roadside memorials (MacConville, 2010), terrorist attack
memorials ( (Foote & Grider, 2010); (Low, 2004)) and war memorials (Vanderbilt, 2010).
However, I firmly advocate for a more comprehensive research on memorial benches, since
they are a complex and changing example of how the secular and the religious converge and
fuse. I want to explore the idea that defines memorial benches as objects that have religious
connotation, even when the inscriptions and symbols in the physical object do not indicate any
religious meaning.

Foremost, the fact that a bench is placed to honour someone who has passed indicates a desire
to continue the relationship with the dead, a desire to keep them alive even if it is just in
memory. A member of the British Humanist Association (BHA), a notorious non-religious
association, reflected on this topic saying ‘people live on in your memories’ (Engelke, 2015).
Additionally, Collins and Rhine (2003) concluded that most of the people that erected a
memorial did not do it with the purpose of parting with the deceased, rather the intention was
to continue this bond, maintaining the one-sided relationship. The emphasis that our
Eurocentric society places on memory and remembering those who have passed can be seen as
undeniably secular, without any ties to religious motives. Remembering is our way of
resuscitating existence, to evaluate what the deceased meant to us and what we have lost with
their deaths (Mueggler, 2017). The significance of memory to command the presence of those
who have died and sustain a connection with them synchronously has the contrary effect: it
highlights an absence. And thus a ‘presence of absence’ is created ( (Wylie, 2009); (Ash, 1996);
(Maddrell, 2013)). However, when we compare our ways of dealing with grief with non-
Eurocentric practices and cultures, we come to realize that our ‘presence of absence’ is not a
universal experience and that our ways of grieving and dealing with death are quite different
depending on the sociocultural environment.
Anthropologist Erik Mueggler (2017) studied the funeral rituals of the Chinese Lòlop´`o
community and observed that their rituals allowed them to completely cut off the relationship
with those who died. Contrary to Euro-American traditions which replace the physical absence
with a mental presence through memory, the Lòlop´`o reject this process. During the rituals
they physically cut the body, to part with the dead altogether in a way that they will not come
back in memory either and it is this same ritual which allows for new relations of kinship to
flourish. Lòlop´`o see these rituals as necessary for the bereaved to continue with their lives
and for the dead to truly rest peacefully (Mueggler, 2017). Another example of how grief and
death can be approached differently is the Merina people, from Madagascar, who believe that
once dead, the relationships individuals had are not subject to change, they are permanently
anchored to a social identity (Bloch, 1996). The Merina do not celebrate lives of the deceased,
they celebrate the way ‘the living have been abolished by transcendental stone’ (Bloch, 1996,
p. 228). These two examples show that evoking a 'presence of absence' due to remembering
the dead is not a comprehensive experience of grief.

As stated in a previous paragraph, the way Euro-American people mourn emphasizes the
absence of the departed whilst maintaining their presence in the realm of memory. But before
this transition can be made, a ritual of some kind must take place. Whether of religious or
secular character, funerary rites occur, and they all have one thing in common: they perform a
‘religious’ function. The marked secularity of these services does not mean that there is not a
collective ritual and collective philosophy behind them (Davies, 2002), like for example
Humanist funerals, which usually centre the life of the deceased and tailor it appropriately to
each person (Engelke, 2015). In all these ceremonies, ‘words against death’ are expressed.
‘Words against death’, coined by Davies (2002), express a clear message of opposition to death
and ways to resist it – for instance, religions would offer the afterlife and would frame the
experience of death within the divine realm (Davies, 2002). ‘Words against death’ are
‘performative utterances’ as they have a distinct force behind them, branding them practically
as powerful as actions (Davies, 2002). This can only happen in the context of ceremonies or
rituals, as the act is collective and so the mourning is amplified and affirmed by the community
(Durkheim, 1915). These performative utterances, as they are so influential, can sway
relationships, start a new stage of grief, and finalise the social life of the deceased (Davies,
2002). I argue that the establishment of a memorial bench is a form of ‘performative utterance’
as actively memorialising and consciously continuing the relationship with the dead is deeply
connected
to religiosity – it is a ritualistic action against death and forgetting (which would be the second
death).

Memorial benches are different from other memorialisation locations for different reasons. For
instance, the motivations behind erecting a memorial bench and war and terrorist-attack
memorials are radically different. War and terrorist-attack memorials are built to tell a story
and enforce a vision ( (Vanderbilt, 2010); (Schaefer, 2018)). By way of illustration, the
construction of the 11-S memorial intended to generate closure as promptly as possible (Low,
2004). On the other hand, bench memorials have a more private function – they value an
individual which could have had a life without any accomplishments or tragedies, although the
function of memorial benches is still social since they contribute to public memory and
therefore contribute to a community’s identity (Foote & Grider, 2010).

Additionally, memorial benches have been presented as a ‘more appropriate’ way of

memorialisation than spontaneous roadside memorials (Maddrell & Sidaway, 2010). This can
be due to several reasons. Firstly, the (non) presence of the body. Roadside shrines or
memorials are located in the place that the deceased died accidentally. The location creates a
grief rite of pilgrimage for the bereaved that can intensify the closeness to the deceased (
(Petersson, 2010); (MacConville, 2010)). However, reactions from the general public can be
totally different. The body, as acknowledged by even non-religious people, is a ‘hugely potent
symbol’ (Engelke, 2015, p. 42). But the body without the necessary context can just signify a
part of life that as a society we need to reject in order to embrace life. It can be seen literally as
‘death infecting life’ (Kristeva, 1982, p. 4). Roadside memorials accentuate the reason and
location for death whilst memorial benches embody the aliveness of the deceased often
accompanied with messages like “This was their favourite spot in this park” or simply the
placement of the bench already hints that they enjoyed the location. When sitting in a memorial
bench one can feel like they are sitting with the person to which the bench is dedicated to, as it
is easy to imagine them alive, sitting in the same spot and walking through the same places
(Wylie, 2009). Secondly, the intentionality of the memorials is also relevant. As mentioned in
the beginning of this essay, locality of memorial benches can be deliberate, chosen by the
grieving family to visit more frequently. On the contrary, roadside, war and terrorist-attack
memorials are placed in the sites of the incidents, and they are constant reminders of mortality
(MacConville, 2010). Memorial benches are not restricted by any mortal incident and as their
intention is to memorialize life, they avoid those localities. This is also a crucial difference with
cemeteries, which are usually located in the outskirts of municipalities and encircled by
symbols of death (Kellaher & Worpole, 2010).

To conclude, we must remark that memorial benches are a unique example of how seemingly
secular objects have religious significance. In the UK, death takes place in the body, and it is
later replicated if the deceased disappears from the memory of the bereaved. The memorial
benches become sacred because they memorialise the dead, and this memorialisation is a
performative act ‘against death’. Not only that, but memorial benches are different from other
types of memorialisation as they encapsule the memory of the deceased in a positive light and
separate that memory from their physical corpse, unlike other memorials like roadside shrines.
The thoughtfulness and intentionality of memorial benches have made them increasingly
popular. Due to this and for the arguments mentioned above, I believe that the social
anthropology field would benefit widely from researching this concept further.

Word count: 2,114

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