RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: midmum on Tuesday 21 August 07 18:58 BST (UK)
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Hi,
Having recently found an ancestor in a public grave I was very surprised to find a stone and his name, date of death and age inscribed upon it. There were also the names of other occupants. However not all the graves occupants were listed. Can anyone please enlighten me as to how and why some are inscribed and others not?
Many thanks Heather
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I know this is a six year old message (!), but you never know, Heather - you might still be reading Rootschat.
I recently had the very same experience. One of my great grandmothers - the only one in the family with a headstone - turned out to be in a public grave. When I queried this, they said 'they must have paid extra'. Different cemeteries have different rules, it seems.
In fact, I now know far more than I ever did about public and private graves. I must say it annoys me intensely when I hear public graves referred to as 'pauper' graves. Of course, many unfortunate paupers are in public graves. But this doesn't mean that everyone in a public grave was a pauper - simply that their families didn't have the necessary capital behind them to stump up for exclusive use and, in many cases, to pay again every twenty five years.
I'm sure many of my hardworking, working class ancestors would be absolutely horrified to hear themselves described in this way! I'm on a soapbox about this today because I'm going to visit said great grandmother. Unfortunately neither her headstone nor her remains are there any more as the land was 'reclaimed' twenty years ago. But I'm hoping to find the sites of several of her children and grandchildren, and place a crafty memorial to her on one of them....
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This grave could well be what was known as an inscription or guinea grave. These were graves where unrelated people were buried together in the same grave but if the family were able to pay £1 for an adult or half price for a child they could have their relatives name, age and date of death inscribed on the headstone. Each headstone served two graves so inscriptions were recorded on both sides of the headstone. I know that this was very common in Yorkshire but do not know about other parts of the country. If you google guinea grave you should find some further information about them and also images.
Best Wishes
CJL
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That's interesting, I have n't heard about that. Most of mine especially from the 1800's are in public graves, no markers. Really sad that no simple marker with the grave number on.
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That's interesting CJL. I wonder if it's a Yorkshire thing? I spent a few hours at a graveyard with about 180,000 people in it today and didn't see anything like that.
The good thing that did come out of it for me was that the Supt said that my g grannies' graves had been reclaimed but not yet buried over, so we could have them preserved if we wanted and also have the stone, or a substitute stone put back.
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Was in bilston cem on Saturday and that's quite big and I suspect some lands been reclaimed. There's a landscaped bit in the middle with some trees and huge gaps, so I suspect there's a few there and the memorial garden I think is bigger so I should imagine some has been reused there. The pockets of certain decades but the ones from when it first opened you can't tell and it was open in the 1850's. Just when you feel you are getting to grips with it, it does n't run to form. Some really unusual stones in there.
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Hi
yes - I'm still on rootschat! These replies are all very interesting. My relatives public grave also has inscriptions on both sides and is in Manchester so Lancashire also did it. I will definitely look up guinea
graves.
This site is just fantastic. I have had new information from queries I have posted years ago, all building my knowledge.
Cheers Heather
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This grave could well be what was known as an inscription or guinea grave. These were graves where unrelated people were buried together in the same grave but if the family were able to pay £1 for an adult or half price for a child they could have their relatives name, age and date of death inscribed on the headstone. Each headstone served two graves so inscriptions were recorded on both sides of the headstone. I know that this was very common in Yorkshire but do not know about other parts of the country. If you google guinea grave you should find some further information about them and also images.
Best Wishes
CJL
Thanks for that very interesting piece of info...very useful to know...
Carol
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You are all very welcome. I am pleased that you have found the information useful.
Good luck to you all with your future research.
Best Wishes
CJL
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Grandfather's little brother was buried in Islington cemetery in 1884, aged 4 months. Deceased Online states that he shares the grave plot with 18 others. The burial dates begin on 17 May and end on 22 June. The majority of burials (14) are for children aged up to 5 years but two are adults 22 and 36. The second and third burials are on 31 May, a fortnight after the first. I am wondering whether the grave would be dug sufficiently large for the others to follow? Would the gravediggers estimate the size of the plot, going on usual numbers of interments over a period? Would they dig out the next space when required or have the whole plot dug with each burial filled in after the funeral? I have not visited so don't know whether there are any headstones.
(with apologies to midmum for hijacking this thread ;))
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Tillypeg,
It is very difficult to say with any certainty which type of grave your Grandad's brother was buried in. It could be any of the following.
Common Graves
Common graves were filled in over the course of a few days. The people buried in them were not related to each other and had died during that period. No headstone was erected. These graves included people who were penniless and were buried by the Board of Guardians at public expense and also people who's families could only afford to pay for the burial.
Lock-Up Graves
These were the cheapest category of common graves. There were three prices, one for stillborn babies, one for children under seven and another for persons over seven (5s for a person over the age of seven in the nineteenth century.) These graves were not completely filled in after each burial. Instead a wooden 'door' was locked in place on to some kind of framework around the grave. When the grave was full the contraption was removed and the grave looked like any other
Public Graves
Another type of common grave. The grave was filled up completely after each interment, so the deepest burial involved most work and cost the largest amount (14s in the nineteenth century.)
Best Wishes
CJL
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Many thanks CJL for your reply, you have answered all my questions most thoroughly.
Regards,
Tillypeg
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Tillypeg,
You are most welcome :)
Best Wishes
CJL
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hello all
I have a feeling that public graves may not have meant x amount of people being buried on top of each other (referring to tillypeg) I previously did a look up in a public grave and it turned out to be an area in the cemetery but in a specific section so maybe there was side by side internment as opposed to the normal regulation of 6 feet under?
tony
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An interesting topic... I have a forebear in an unmarked grave described as a public plot and this adds to the story of his life. He would have been of modest means, not a pauper, but had few living relatives to organise affairs and he was an old man when he died.
Many people would have a fear of affording a decent burial and would take out insurance policies to cover the expense. In one cemetery I know of, the topography of the land dictated how deep the plots could be and with some public plots up to 12 burials were made whereas 6 was the limit for private plots. There are cemeteries were plots are reclaimed after say 20 years and reused so additional people would be non family. Other plots are 'in perpetuity' so were more pricey.
My father used to visit his family plots annually to give them a tidy up but was upset one year to find that a community centre had been built over the oldest graves and the stones removed to the perimeter.