Can't afford gravestones?

[Filiem]

Wish I could say the same, but you had done very well. My ancestors had very little. How much do you think a burial and headstone would have cost?

A month or 2's wages?

I was wondering this also!

I managed to get the inscription of the only family grave remaining in the churchyard but it is very difficult to make sense of it, it is so worn away, and I can't match the dates to anyone in the family tree yet, I fear there were more Johns and Josephs in the village that belong to me that I haven't discovered yet!

[willow154]

Hi everyone,
I've been looking for ages; trying to find something on the costs of burying the dead in Victorian England. Finally found this book on googlebooks:
www.rootschat.com/links/05za
There are all sorts of interesting bits of information in this book; so it's well worth having a skim through it.
Paulene

[Old Mother Reilly]

I know I'm always delighted if I can find a gravestone - I even found one completely by chance halfway up a mountainside in Wales  . 

However, most of my family branches seem to have felt there were more important things to do with the money, if they had it.  We always thought one particular lot remarkably unsentimental as they were relatively middle class but had no grave markers anywhere.  Then, as I began to research the Parish Register entries for the family, it emerged they had lost 5 children out of 12 and buried a spouse and both sets of their parents during a period of less than 10 years ... if they had marked all the graves (in 4 different towns) they would have been starving to pay the stonemason! 

I like to find out where my ancestors "ended up".  I recently found records showing one gt-gt-grandfather buried in a communal grave not 2 miles for where I used to live in NE London bedsitland - and I thought I was the only member of the family ever to live there    The site has now been sold on but I know where to find him if I am ever passing  .

It's reassuring to find out that there are lots of other families who, for whatever reason, did not mark their relatives' graves.

Rachel

[willow154]

Hi Rachel,

Yes, knowing where they lie is the important thing - time and weather cannot change that  (unless, as in Nottingham, when they built the ice stadium, the council dug up hundreds of graves and moved them all to a mass grave I believe, at the Wilford cemetery - don't quote me on this; it's just from memory).
It was just the cost of the headstone, it was mourning attire for a year, booze up after, etc etc - Victorian funeral rituals were a their height and it seems very expensive. I can quite understand why some families chose a different approach.

Paulene

[Old Mother Reilly]

Indeed, for the fashionable Victorian death and mourning seem to have been quite a palavar - quite apart from ones actual feelings.  The black crepe business must have been very profitable, though!

Rachel

[Vasquez109]

Paulene. That google book is great. How did you find that?

David.

[willow154]

Hi David,
Go to google booksearch - you find this by putting this into any search engine. A list of search results appear.
This will bring up the search page, and then you just put in words for your search, as in any other search on any search engine.
The first time I put in the words ' cost of burying the dead' which brought up nothing of real interest. Then I tried again using a phrase such as 'cost of Victorian funerals' - looked through the books which came up, and thought this seemed the most appropriate one.
If you haven't used google books,a s well as your normal searches, try it - some wonderful things come up.
It certainly explains the hard choices families had to make (and still do) + gives an insight into the way the families viewed death as compared to today.
Glad to be of help.
Paulene

[scrimnet]

Just as a slightly more modern addenda....

When my brother died as a 9yr old, there was no gravestone as my parents believed that to add one would be "holding him down"....

One was added when my mother died, with an inscription for both of them...

My parents didn't have enough money at the time to buy a pair of leggings for a skylark, and I know that the grave cost quite a bit as well...So that wouldn't have helped either....

[willow154]

Morning scrimnet
I should think the tradegy of losing your brother at such a young age was such a big blow that it was all they could do to get through the first few weeks.
I now that when my father died I never put his name in the memorial book at the crematorium (The option to get the entry put in was only for a limited period) - I was just so numb and and hurting inside. Now I wish I had, but the pain I felt at the time took over everything else.
I think your parents' words maybe, showed their grief, loss and love more than any words they could have put on a headstone.
So sad
Paulene