Where would you find the grave

[BumbleB]

If you use this link, and then choose C from the alphabetical list, you will see that 12 Waen Street, Conway was the address of the local Workhouse.

http://www.workhouses.org.uk/addresses/c.shtml

[cemetery friends]

See http://www.workhouses.org.uk/addresses/c.shtml which confirms the address was a workhouse.

[laurenbailey]

Workhouses were not identified as such on official documents such as death certificates but the street address was used to avoid a family being embarrassed by their circumstances, the same applied to a burial arranged by the workhouse. Sometimes the grave was marked with a wooden or brass marker with a serial number but often over the years these disappeared. I do not know if the address was a workhouse but in some cases a family would be paid an allowance to house a "half way" inmate. I think the fact the workhouse master was mentioned means there was a connection and by law the name of a deceased was not allowed on a grave marker.

i'm so gutted to hear that! his brother died young so he had a grave stone in St Mary's with poem on the head stone, it's been kept really well so i did wonder if Thomas would have had the same but i think by the time he died in 1921, his mum and dad had already died by that point so it wouldn't surprise me if he's been buried within the work house

[laurenbailey]

The workhouse master probably had an arrangement to bury inmates in a cemetery in the locality of the workhouse in what was known as a pauper's grave. Such graves were not allowed to show the names of the deceased on a marker.

from the death certificate it states that the address is "12 waen terrace, Conwy, Caernarvonshire, Wales" and it sounds/looks like just a house? i can't believe there could be a possibility that he could have been buried with no mark or name

What was know as a pauper grave was simply a common grave, that is a grave not purchased as a private grave in which unrelated people may be buried.

Most cemetery regulations forbid the use of headstones on these common graves as only a few of the people buried in such graves had relatives who could pay for an inscription on the headstone.

The cemeteries also used these common graves to advantage by locating them between purchased plots, this gave the appearance that the cemetery was more spacious (or less packed) than was really the case.

You need to look in the plot register to see who was buried where.
I would also suggest looking in Bangor; many workhouses in a Union still used the policy of returning the body of the deceased to their parish of origin even though the Union was by this time considered to be “one parish”

Cheers
Guy

thank you for the information, how do i look for a plot register? i didn't think it was possible!

thank you.

[laurenbailey]

laurenbailey - you say that the death certificate gives an address of 12 Waen Terrace, Conwy.  You also attached a link to the burial register, where Thomas Roberts is shown as having lived at 12 Waen Terrace.  Did you not also notice that of the 16 entries on those 2 pages of the burial register, 8 of them had the address of 12 Waen Terrace?

Yes i did notice a lot of other people died at the same address and i had tried to find out if they had a grave at all even if thomas did not have one, but i had no luck in finding them

[laurenbailey]

If you use this link, and then choose C from the alphabetical list, you will see that 12 Waen Street, Conway was the address of the local Workhouse.

http://www.workhouses.org.uk/addresses/c.shtml

thank you! i'd not seen that before, thank you for letting me know

[laurenbailey]

See http://www.workhouses.org.uk/addresses/c.shtml which confirms the address was a workhouse.

thank you! i'd not seen that before, thank you for letting me know

[BumbleB]

You do also have to remember that Workhouse did not always mean just that.  A lot of hospitals were attached to a Workhouse, and it may just have been that Thomas was in the Hospital, rather than in inmate.

[Guy Etchells]

thank you for the information, how do i look for a plot register? i didn't think it was possible!

thank you.

You have to contact the owners of the cemetery (possibly the local council, through their crematorium office) who will hold the plot register.

Cheers
Guy