Deaths of Babies

[Cockneyrebel]

So many of my ancestors had lots of children but quite a lot died shortly after birth. How did the parents pay for funerals for them or was it free?
Cr

[melba_schmelba]

So many of my ancestors had lots of children but quite a lot died shortly after birth. How did the parents pay for funerals for them or was it free?
Cr

I don't think it would be free, unless they were classified as 'paupers'. When I have actually found infant burials, sadly they were buried with many others (10s+), but that was unfortunately similar story for many burials in cities. But I have been unable to find many records of infants especially in London, and since probably most cemeteries in London are now indexed online it is a bit of a puzzle. There are a few ones that I know are not indexed such as the City of London cemetery in Ilford which you can browse online.

[Spelk]

If the parents had the money then they could have a ceremony and a burial in a family or separate plot.
If they did not have the cash the body could be just put inside the coffin of someone else who just happened to be getting buried then.
The baby might still be mentioned on a memorial stone elsewhere in the cemetery or some other place.
A stillborn baby would have no birth or death certificate so I do not think it was considered a person so could just be disposed of. There were newspaper reports however about girls who had babies in secret and tried to hide the body. But was the baby born dead or did the girl kill it or let it die?

[Cockneyrebel]

It must have been very distressing for the parents of the deceased child. Only the rich could afford funerals in those far off days then.
Cr

[fiddlerslass]

Poorer people sometimes subscribed to burial societies and/or friendly societies to help with costs of burial and sickness.

[california dreamin]

So many of my ancestors had lots of children but quite a lot died shortly after birth. How did the parents pay for funerals for them or was it free?
Cr

I've been told that well into the '20's many poorer family would wait outside the gates of a cemetery to where a funeral hearse (and I'm talking a horse drawn hearse) would pull up. The funeral men would take a few coppers and take the body of the infant or child from them.  (Apparently there was a sliding hatch underneath the drivers seat to conceal the body).  These men would later take the body and place it within the coffin they were legitimately taking to the cemetery for burial. It sounds to have been a regular practice for the poor

CD

[Viktoria]

I have heard of still births or neo natal deaths ,where the baby would be placed in the coffin of an older person, at least two of my mother’s baby brothers were so buried but my grandmother’s last baby died at two months from measles in April 1910, and was buried in her  recently deceased sister’s grave who diedJanuary 1910. aged 16.
There is a flat stone ,over the grave of those children,which is also the grave of their maternal grandparents and my great grand parents ,all names and dates recorded on the stone ,but about twenty years before that two baby boys also died and poverty dictated they be in a paupers’ grave with twenty non related people .
Grandad worked for an undertaker as blacksmith for the Friesian horses  that pulled the hearse and carriages.
He would know if there were any burials in their neighbourhood I suppose .
It would be some comfort to think a little baby was with a person who perhaps had grandchildren of their own
What a hard world  it was
in those days.

Viktoria.

[Top-of-the-hill]

  Someone who has done a lot of work in our village churchyard thinks that an area at the side may have been used for child burials.
  I can only speak for village churchyards - it was probably different in urban areas - but I don't think it is right to say only the rich could afford funerals. I have just looked through the burial register for a neighbouring, larger, village around 1850, and there were many infant burials recorded, although at that date no record of where they were buried.

[Jebber]

A 3 times great grandfather of mine was Sexton  of St. George’s in Deal Kent. In his notebook he describes placing an infant in the foot  of the coffin of an adult, he describes the position in relation to neighbouring graves. I have no idea if Sextons of other churches were so diligent.