Public Graves

[midmum]

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

[Winterbloom21]

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....

[cjl]

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

[weste]

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.

[Winterbloom21]

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.

[weste]

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.

[midmum]

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

[Treetotal]

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

[cjl]

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