The prolific architectural and historical writer, James Stevens Curl, author of over 10 books and now in his seventies, has produced a new work which examines the culture of death in Victorian times and the history and origins of the cemetery as we know it. Entitled The Victorian Celebration of Death, its focus is the 19th century, and while it closely examines the origins of monumental sculpture in graveyards and cemeteries it also explores the broader social context which brought large urban cemeteries like Glasnevin into existence, during the 1830s.
Curl explains how, in the Victorian period, life became dramatically more urban, and rural populations declined. The need for sanitary disposal of the dead, especially in great cities like London or Paris, became urgent and gave rise to the "garden cemetery", of which Mount Jerome and Glasnevin, in Dublin, are very good examples. Other chapters analyse Victorian attitudes to death, private cemeteries and mausolea (a subject which has been touched on here by Messrs Craig's recent book Mausolea Hibernica) and the elaborate architecture associated with the final resting places of the dead.
In a period when life was often short (average life expectancy for a male of the professional classes was about 45, and much less for the working classes), and when death in childbirth was quite common, along with the ravages of disease, war and famine, it is not surprising that Victorians, especially the better off, commemorated death with pomp and made much of it. The word "celebration" seems hard for us to grasp, but there was certainly an attempt to add as much dignity to the whole event as possible. The chapter entitled "Funerals, Ephemera and Mourning" describes some of the elaborate horse-drawn hearses, the etiquette of funerals, funeral processions and state funerals, which the Victorians, and especially the English, brought to such a pitch.
The book, naturally enough, is written from an English perspective, and deals largely with the rituals of the better off, but many of Curl's findings are equally true for Irish Victorians. Though there is mention of Ireland, India and the US in the context of great public cemeteries, there is no reference to the devastation caused by the Famine in Ireland, and where or how its victims were buried or disposed of.
The chapter entitled "Crisis, Uncertainty and Change" does analyse some of the social problems of Victorian burial, especially the public health issues, but also, intriguingly, looks at the obsession with "premature interment" or being buried alive. Special tombs were filled up with strings attached to the fingers of the corpse, connected to a system of bells - just in case! Fascinating, well researched and easily read, this book, about a subject from which none can escape, is a must for anyone with an interest in graveyards and rituals of death.
Peter Pearson is an artist and author: his book The Heart of Dublin was published recently by O'Brien Press