Hi
I think there is a certain confusion here between a pauper's funeral/a public funeral - everything paid for by the local authority and before them the poor law union - and a burial with unrelated others in a common grave and what a large proportion of the population could afford to pay for - mortuary fees which would include their funeral and coffin, burial etc, someone from the clergy to hold the service, and the cost of the burial, albeit also in a grave with unrelated others - a common grave, but not in the same sense at all a pauper's grave. These people were not paupers. The cost of the funeral was scrapped together by families when funerals in families particularly of young children could occur far more often than they do today. It was with some pride that these families did not have to resort to paupers' funerals. The cost of a grave plot and certainly a gravestone were expensive items beyond the reach of many families. Nowadays that expense is less because of cremation which became a viable alternative for families particularly after the Second World.
Quote from Brompton cemetery in London's website
'On the west, large sections of cheaper 'common' graves accommodated several unrelated coffins in one deep cut with no right to erect a monument above; some were dug almost 22 feet (7m) deep to take up to ten adult burials. There are very few actual paupers' graves: although there is said to be a cholera pit from the epidemic of 1846 in the southwest corner, this is not evidenced in the burial books.'
If for instance you wished to be buried today in one of the London boroughs' cemeteries, these are the costs you would incur.
Purchase of an exclusive right to burial for 50 years, for a resident in the borough is £927.40 rising to £2,782.30 if you are a non-resident.
The internment fee for residents is £956.15 or for non-residents £2,868.50.
There are other charges but those are the two biggest.
A public funeral requested by Social Services or Social Services Contractor (cremation) costs £182.85 and a private cremation is £446.
The undertakers fees for private funerals, coffins etc are of course on top of these charges.
Regards
Valda
