41 people in one grave??

[arkay]

I've just been searching the Manchester City Online Burial Records and was quite shocked to find that out of 10 graves on the page I was looking at (for Harold Davies), 8 of them contained over 20 unrelated people, and one as many as 41!  I'm very curious to know how that was possible? 

Arkay

[Gaille]

I've just been searching the Manchester City Online Burial Records and was quite shocked to find that out of 10 graves on the page I was looking at (for Harold Davies), 8 of them contained over 20 unrelated people, and one as many as 41!  I'm very curious to know how that was possible? 

Arkay

Arkay they sound like 'Paupers' graves to me, they were quite common in larger cemeteries - Southern and  Phillips Park have loads of them.
Basically they were used if the family didnt have the means to pay for a grave of their own. You will probaly find that there are also quite a lot of Still-born and young Childrens names listed in there too.

Gaille

[arkay]

Hi Gaille,

Yes, I figured they would be paupers' graves, but did they just dig a huge hole or trench and stack the bodies inside all at once, or keep on opening up the grave to add more?   Sounds pretty gruesome, either way!

[stanmapstone]

See http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,444928.msg3077124.html#msg3077124

Stan

[Luzzu]

I have quite a few ancestors buried in Southern and Phillips Park and looking at the stones I have managed to find it seems the burials were all within a few days of each other so may be they opened a grave and then used the same grave for 2-3 days until it was full.  Had a look at the one of the Harold Davies graves and the particular one I was looking at had all the burials taking place within a few days in Feb 1913.  I wouldn't like to think how they sorted out the logistics of burying so many people in one grave but I think Gaille is right in saying the ones with large numbers of burials are often children or babies.

I also believe that these graves were "common inscription graves" rather than "paupers" graves.  A small payment was made for burial in a common inscription grave which were filled in during the course of a few days and contained the bodies of unrelated people.  The cost of burial in one of these graves would have been scraped together by the family because there was a huge amount of shame in having an "uncommerated burial".  Also wiith the high infant mortality rate, there were also "penny" insurance schemes to cover the costs of a child's burial as there would be huge embarrassment in not being able to afford a funeral,

A pauper was buried by the Board of Guardians (i.e. at public expense) and was for a person who had no family to claim the body and pay for a funeral.  I am not sure if the grave would have been inscribed with the persons name.  Even today, the local authority would pay for a simple funeral for a person who had no next of kin or had made no financial provision.

Luzzu

[arkay]

Thanks to everyone for your replies. 

It seems that the burials in the 41-person grave were either in 1970 or 1980 (none in between) and many were children and babies. 

You never stop learning new things, do you?  Especially on RootsChat!