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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: jourdmart on Monday 27 April 09 14:58 BST (UK)

Title: TB Deaths & Cremation
Post by: jourdmart on Monday 27 April 09 14:58 BST (UK)

Does anybody know if it was common practice to cremate the victims of TB (for disease control purposes, perhaps)?

I have a father and son who both died of TB in 1916 and 1919. I have tracked down the buriel for the wife, but the husband is not buried with her, unlike other buriel records I have traced.

Thanks,

Martin.

Title: Re: TB Deaths & Cremation
Post by: nanny jan on Monday 27 April 09 15:41 BST (UK)

Hi,

My grandmother and her daughter died of TB within 6 weeks of each other in 1935 and they are both buried in a London cemetery.


Nanny Jan

Title: Re: TB Deaths & Cremation
Post by: robbo43 on Monday 27 April 09 20:13 BST (UK)

I've got several people who died of TB in the 1880s & 90s, and they were all buried.

Robert

Title: Re: TB Deaths & Cremation
Post by: Greensleeves on Monday 27 April 09 21:22 BST (UK)

I don't know if this was common practice, but there used to be a TB hospital in the village where I live, and there is an area in the churchyard which holds the graves of TB patients from that hospital.  It seems, even now, a rather sad and austere area, as there are no gravestones, only wooden crosses with simple inscriptions.

Title: Re: TB Deaths & Cremation
Post by: Lemontree on Monday 27 April 09 22:31 BST (UK)

You couldn't have a cremation until 1902 as it wasn't allowed in uk.

Title: Re: TB Deaths & Cremation
Post by: nanny jan on Monday 27 April 09 22:40 BST (UK)

I thought the first legal cremation in England was in 1885 at Woking.   :-\


Nanny Jan

Title: Re: TB Deaths & Cremation
Post by: robbo43 on Monday 27 April 09 22:42 BST (UK)

Construction of the he first crematorium in Britain started in 1878 at Woking and the first cremation took place there in 1886.  Dr William Price cremated his infant son in 1884 on an open pyre, he was prosecuted and the court found that it was not illegal to cremate a body.  The 1902 Act simply laid down the procedures to be followed and restricted the practice to authorised places.

Robert

Title: Re: TB Deaths & Cremation
Post by: nanny jan on Monday 27 April 09 22:46 BST (UK)

Thanks for clearing that Robert; I was relying on second-hand information.  :-[


Nanny Jan

Title: Re: TB Deaths & Cremation
Post by: maidmarion on Tuesday 28 April 09 10:22 BST (UK)

Hi
I wouldn't have thought cremation necessary as TB is carried by droplets ie coughing, sneezing and spitting. :)

maidmarion