Abstract

"Conspicuously Fraudulent Cemetery Companies in 19th Century Britain"

Julie Rugg, University of York (julie.rugg@york.ac.uk)

Cemetery companies emerged in Britain during the second quarter in the nineteenth
century, originally as a means of Nonconformist communities securing burial space
that was independent of Established Church control. However, emerging concerns
relating to the public health consequences of poor-quality interment in overcrowded
inner-city churchyards meant that the format was soon adopted by town councils
seeking a public health improvement that made no call on the rates. Speculative
investment in cemetery companies was strongly evident during the joint-stock booms
of the mid-1830s. However, a small number of much more elaborate burial schemes
emerged during the same period. Seeking to secure huge amounts of capital – on
average, £300,000, at a time when most company cemeteries aimed to raise
£10,000 – the companies were conspicuously grandiose, probably seeking profit
from short-term trading in their own scrip. However, this type of speculation
encouraged critique of all cemetery companies, irrespective of their intent. British
cemetery companies sit at the heart of the dilemma that attends the very concept of
funerary capitalism: in what ways is it acceptable to profit from death?