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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Traysha on Monday 20 May 19 21:02 BST (UK)
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I wanted a pic of a grave at Epsom Cemetery and someone supplied the plot no on Find a Grave, so I asked some kind person to take one for me. She posted one of that grave number but it was the wrong name for me. However on Epsom burial website they are both buried at the same site. Don't know if the two people are connected but one is a kind of war memorial of someone who served in the CEF(Canadian Expeditionary Forces). The burial date given for the private is 1year before the one I'm interested in. Any thoughts. By the way there is no headstone for the latter.
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In many cemeteries, if the plot for the first burial wasn’t purchased, the same plot would be used for a future burial, often unrelated.
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A couple of times I've found a burial I wasn't expecting, in a "Family grave" - one proved to be the child of young neighbours of the family, in another a relative of the later( keep up) husband of a second wife, who had been widowed ...oddly enough the original husband was parked elsewhere??
You never know, there may be a connection turns up in time....
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In many cemeteries, if the plot for the first burial wasn’t purchased, the same plot would be used for a future burial, often unrelated.
Yes, my Gt. Uncle (buried second, on top) shares a grave with a stranger.
My Gt Aunt was swayed by her Brother in grief, as it made the cost of the grave cheaper. However, my Gt Aunt who could have purchased a single grave for two in the Council Cemetery, deeply regretted the decision afterward, as she knew she couldn't be buried there. However, her ashes were let in the surface, as requested in her Will.
Unless, it is a Vault, or Family Grave, the Parish Church often buried the deceased with or just above the previous burial.
A couple of times I've found a burial I wasn't expecting, in a "Family grave" - one proved to be the child of young neighbours of the family, in another a relative of the later( keep up) husband of a second wife, who had been widowed ...oddly enough the original husband was parked elsewhere??
You never know, there may be a connection turns up in time....
Anything might turn up, in burial Records and on Memorials.
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Not everyone had a Headstone. Others have crumbled, been damaged and/or been removed.
Sometimes, the Headstone is left to the last family burial in the grave and the family alive then (if any), sometimes don't bother to purchase one, or cannot afford one.
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Traysha, have you checked to see whether they are distantly related?
Mark
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Hi,
Would it be possible for you to send me a personal message with the name/names of the people, particularly the one who served in the CEF(Canadian Expeditionary Forces) ?
Sandra
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Thanks for your input but don't think the two are connected. Looks like the ex soldier was buried first, then mine, then a memorial erected to the private. Strange but the latters widow and daughter have a grave of their own.
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Sandra, can't send a pm as it says your inbox is full ;D ::)
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Can't find my outbox to retrieve the pm.
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Can't find my outbox to retrieve the pm.
Go to https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?action=pm;f=inbox
And then there is a drop-down menu under "Messages" (grey box, LH side) to get to "sent Items"
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Thanks for that but it just shows "sent" messages and as it wasn't actually sent it should have been saved to outbox but not showing that >:(
Must retype info again to send when Sandra is ready to receive....over and out
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If this is the one I think it is, there are in fact 13 unrelated people buried there over 1925-26. Only the soldier has a headstone, which looks as if it is quite recent. I'll PM Sandra with the list.
Many cemeteries, including Epsom, have "private" and "public" graves. With private graves, exclusive burial rights are purchased, usually for a family, and for a set period of time like 75 years or even in perpetuity, though the latter is uncommon nowadays. The owners usually have a right to erect a monument such as headstone and/or kerbs.
With public (aka "common") graves, there are no such rights and unrelated people are buried together. One of my relatives is with 18 strangers, and I've known 30 or more. Headstones may or may not be permitted and where they are and relatives can afford them, they tend to be miniature ones less than knee height. You'll often see rows of them one behind the other like dominos. I've also seen full size headstones with multiple unrelated names. Public graves are obviously cheaper and often referred to as "pauper's graves", though I think this term should really be applied to those buried "on the parish".
Burial of a child in the private grave of friends or strangers who died around the same time was a common practice until quite recently and may still happen. The kind explanation was "so the child wouldn't be lonely", but harsher reality was that unless you could afford it, no one wanted to bother opening a grave for a baby.
If you look up a relative somewhere like Deceasedonline and it says "buried with X others" and X is half a dozen or more, then it was either a private grave of a large, rich family or a public one and you may have difficulty finding it. With the present shortage of burial space in towns, public grave areas of cemeteries are now the first to be reused for ashes plots or new burials by piling several feet of earth on top, and your relative's grave will be unrecognisable.
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Thank you for your message Chris. Very interesting. The CWGC very often deem a headstone (or no headstone) as not an adequate commemoration and produce a new one to mark the graves of personnel who died during the war or as a result of the war. (complete with a rededication service) I wondered if this might be the case but that doesn't look like a typical CWGC headstone.
Sandra
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This is the grave we're talking about. It certainly looks like a headstone provided privately rather than the familiar CWGC vertical stones or the smaller flat "Gallipoli" stones now sometimes used as they are presumably easier and cheaper to install and less obtrusive on family monuments. I haven't been able to find out anything about him and why he was still here so long after WW1,
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Yes Chris, that is the headstone I am referring to. The person also buried there is Walter James Gubby who had been a trainer, jockey and turf accountant and probably would have had a fair amount of money as he sold horses in 1887 worth up to 100gns. His widow was buried in a different grave with her daughter and there is a headstone for them at Epsom.
Did you mean there were 13 buried in that particular grave? That's unbelievable!!!
There are 7 burials for the family Gubby babies who have all been given a grave number, but don't know if there will be any headstones.
I found John Richard Wilkinson in the Canadian Archives. His attestation paper says he was born in London 30 June 1878, sister Mary Smart of Gillingham Kent.
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This is the grave we're talking about. It certainly looks like a headstone provided privately rather than the familiar CWGC vertical stones or the smaller flat "Gallipoli" stones now sometimes used as they are presumably easier and cheaper to install and less obtrusive on family monuments. I haven't been able to find out anything about him and why he was still here so long after WW1,
Hello
The reason why the Headstone is not IWGC / now CWGC is the year date 1925. The War Graves Commission were only responsible for a set number of years after WW 1 and WW 2.
If a person died of War injuries outside of the IWGC / CWGC specified period, they generally don't have a War Commission Grave, ***
or
It might also be the case that he died of something else (not war related), but his kin wanted to acknowledge his War Service. But 1925 is outside the CWGC period.
As a former L.A. Officer, I always understood our Paupers Graves (also known as Public Health Act burials) in UK Local Authority Cemeteries to be a burial:-
where no person has come forward to claim the deceased (yes it does happen) and Council Officers can find no money or bank account and no references to next of kin at his/her residence and upon enquiry with the neighbours, etc., of the deceased;
or the person responsible has no money to bury the deceased.
Also a case where the deceased died whilst officially Bankrupt and had no funds.
There are also shared graves (like my Gt Uncle's), where the deceased shares a used grave with a stranger, as it was cheaper to purchase a burial space in the used grave (rather than an outright Freehold purchase grave).
Shared graves are not necessarily always a 'Pauper's grave'.
Mark
Added
*** see CWGC
Who Do You Commemorate? on their Frequently Asked Questions page
https://www.cwgc.org/about-us/faqs
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I don't know who organises or maintains them, but I've seen many CWGC-style headstones for deaths between the wars and after 1947. As far as I know, they are still used to this day unless the family prefers their own. They aren't listed on the CWGC website (http://www.cwgc.org), but an incomplete list post-WW2 is on the Armed Forces Memorial (http://www.gov.uk/search-armed-forces-memorial-roll-of-honour) site. (I think I found a site for the inter-war years, but I've lost the URL.)
A few I've collected are listed here inter-war (http://www.findagrave.com/virtual-cemetery/720204?page=1#sr-181745151) and here post WW2 (http://www.findagrave.com/virtual-cemetery/634564?page=1#sr-152454677)
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That is correct - Private Wilkinson would not have qualified as a war casualty as he died in 1925.
Not all war graves in the UK are marked by CWGC headstones. Approximately, 37000 war graves in the UK are marked by private memorials chosen by the casualty’s family, some graves are marked by a private memorial as well as a CWGC headstone.
Private memorials are inspected when CWGC staff visit the burial grounds concerned and when, in the opinion of there Inspector, the war casualty is no longer commemorated adequately, steps would then be taken to remedy the situation, possibly by the addition of a Commission headstone.
Sandra
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I have received a reply to my email to Epsom Cemetery and it confirms what has been said on this forum
"Walter James Gubby is indeed buried in grave space K 735 in Epsom Cemetery as is John Richard Wilkinson.
This grave space is a public grave space and holds many remains of people who were buried in 1925 and 1926 but who were unrelated. In older days it was often termed as a common grave.
There is a granite marker placed upon this grave space to the late John Richard Wilkinson as he was a Canadian War Veteran."
I still can't comprehend how 13 could have been buried there. It must cover a decent sized plot or else I dread to think they were buried on top of each other without coffins. Heaven fordid!!!1
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I suspect common grave coffins were stacked side-by-side as well as vertically. Spacing between graves at Espom is quite generous, unlike elsewhere. The hedge may have been mere saplings at the time K735 was being filled -- on the other side of it is the main WW1 memorial and burial area. I can well believe that K735 would have been 3 wide and 5 deep if it had been filled, though I'd have to compare with other common graves there to be sure. Remember that people were smaller in the 1920s than nowadays and common grave coffins were doubtless unelaborate, unlined, and quite cramped.
But yes, occupants of common graves could be buried in just shrouds. I've heard stories of coffins with trapdoors on the bottom so they could be lifted out once the mourners had left.
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That raises a question to me - if there was a trapdoor, to leave the body in the grave, and allow the removal of the coffin, it'd have to be the same size as the base of the coffin, probably hinged at each side, and opening centrally and how would that be secured during the funeral ceremonies and actual burial? They could hardly rely on the occupant of the coffin sliding a catch across, could they? Anyone seen patent drawings for such a device?
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An undertaker in Bradford, is using a cardboard inner coffin which is left in the grave when the outer wooden one is dismantled after the burial! Has to be Yorkshire! ;D
Skoosh.
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As a Yorkshire tyke ... how dare you suggest.....?
(But how is that done, as well?)
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I still can't comprehend how 13 could have been buried there. It must cover a decent sized plot or else I dread to think they were buried on top of each other without coffins. Heaven fordid!!!1
I've got records of common/pauper graves that have up to 40 people in.
I've just picked a plot (13707) at random in my local (Hunslet) Cemetery and there were 25 people buried in there in 1889. 23 of them were aged 2 years or under. The other two people were in their 70s. That's such a sad record to look at.
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That raises a question to me - if there was a trapdoor, to leave the body in the grave, and allow the removal of the coffin, it'd have to be the same size as the base of the coffin, probably hinged at each side, and opening centrally and how would that be secured during the funeral ceremonies and actual burial?
When Mozart was buried at the end of the film "Amadeus", bearers opened one end of the coffin and slid corpse into grave.
Cardboard inner coffin is a good idea.
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Reverting to John Wilkinson, his records are here on Fold3 (http://www.fold3.com/image/668016486), free to view until midnight today (28th May) thanks to their Memorial Day long weekend.
I've only had a quick skim through. He served in France and there are many pages of X-ray reports on shrapnel and bone fragments as well as mention of multiple scars. He was discharged on 16th May 1919 (so he didn't die in service) and elected to remain in England, presumably as he was born in London.
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Glasgow's Southern Necropolis, opened after the scandal of private mass-graves for cholera victims in the 1840's, has quarter of a million people buried in it including sections for inmates of the local Poor-House (Work-House in England). Superstitious practices like corpses being buried east/west went out of the window in all the municipal cemeteries.
Another superstitious practice like the burying of bodies inside churches was banned by the Kirk at the Reformation in the 1560's, the churches must have stank!
Skoosh.
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@ TY, I fancy the bottom board of this coffin is secured with clips & stays in the grave when the top & sides are lifted. A bit like a jelly in a fancy mould! ;D
Skoosh.
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John was about 36 and single when he enlisted and supposedly never married after he was discharged with all those injuries. As you said he didn't die from his wounds but they probably impacted greatly on his quality of life. My Uncle suffered mustard gas poisoning in WW1 but survived the war only to live with the affect effects of it till 1957. I can remember visiting him when I was young and he had a spittoon nearby :(