How to be duck foodPauper burial in Georgian Westminster

Jeremy Boulton, Newcastle University

Today, pauper funerals ‘public health funerals’ are very rare:

2900/484,000 or just over half of one per cent: 0.60%

The typical pauper funeral today is of an elderly man:

Three quarters (76 per cent) of public health funerals conducted in 2010/11 were for males

On average half (51 per cent) of the funerals they organised were for those aged 65 and over

The Parish of St Martin in the Fields and the Pauper Lives Project

A large (25,000 or so) socially heterogeneous parish in London’s West End

Equivalent to roughly 40 ‘Terlings’...

Wenceslaus Hollar (1607 –1677), Nine Ducks.

Wenceslaus Hollar (1607 –1677), Water fowl, c. 1645

The meanings of pauper burial in St Martin in the Fields

Poor man’s burial, Marcellus Laroon, the elder?, c. 1687. Marcellus Laroon, lived in Bow Street, St Paul, Covent Garden, 1680-1702.

His daughter was relieved by St Martin’s parish 1714-1736...

Location, location, location...

St Martin in the Fields was relatively short of burial space...

Close ups of St Martin’s old principal churchyard, 1799 and 1871..

The Workhouse Burial Ground, derelict and empty in 1886

Tavistock Ground (opened 1764), as illustrated in 1849

‘the parish officers of St. Martin’s in the Fields have divided all their new burying ground by Drury Lane into lots, and numbered the same by figures affixed round the walls: they have also ordered a book to be kept, and the name of every person buried, with the lot or number of each mentioned therein. By this method every person may know the burying ground of his relations’ . Lloyds Evening Post (7th December 1764, issue 1157).

It is well known, that several Out-Parishes of this City and Liberties are very much straiten’d for Room to bury their Dead; and that to remedy in part that Inconvenience they dig in their Church-yards, or other annexed Burial-Places, large Holes or Pits, in which they put many of the Bodies of those, whose Friends are not able to pay for better Graves; and then those Pits or Holes (called the Poor’s Holes) once opened, are not cover’d, till fill’d with such dead Bodies: Thus it is in St. Martin’s, St. James’s, and St. Giles’s in the Fields, and other Places.

Some Customs consider’d Whether Prejudical to the Health of this City; And if they are, Whether we may not hope to them Reformed, London (1721), 7-8.

The nature of pauper burial in St Martin in the Fields

There is something so barbarous and shocking to Human Nature in this Custom, that one would wonder how it ever came to be taken up at the first, and much more that it should be so long continued. The treating of those Bodies in such a different way from all the rest that lie in those Burying-Places, looks like a branding and stigmatizing of them with Ignominy and Disgrace at their Deaths, for some Crimes they had been guilty of in their Lives; and as tho they had been Sinners and Criminals above all the rest of the Parish; which Treatment of them, is as grievous and cutting to their surviving Relations, as their very Death itself.

WHEREAS in Reality there is no other Reason for their being thus distinguished from others in their Burials, but that they died poor, tho perhaps part of their Time they lived plentifully, and served several Parish Offices reputably, and to Satisfaction.

Some Customs consider’d, 10-11.

Pauper interments:

Paupers were interred either in the Almshouse ground (almswomen only) or the Workhouse ground until 1778

After 1778 the workhouse ground was closed and all paupers were carried to the new burial ground at Drury Lane

This caused gross overcrowding at Drury Lane:

In 1800 the churchwardens paid £1 5s 6d as an ‘allowance to Workhouse men for procuring Earth to raise Tavistock Burial Ground’

After 1806 almost all parish paupers were interred at a new parish burial ground in Camden Town

The parish was increasingly reluctant to issue ‘notes’ for pauper burials or fee reductions - or fewer were requested..

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Number of burials by note (this includes fee re-ductions)

Number of burials by note

That it be recommended to the Churchwardens to be carefull in giving notes to excuse Funeral fees, and on no pretence whatever to give such notes for Burials under any part of the Ground that is paved (2nd May 1785, F2008)

Most pauper burials came from the parish workhouse... But not all (workhouse rebuilt and capacity extended 1771/2)

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% Pauper burials from WH

Stream of pauper burials into Drury Lane provoked complaints...

3/8/1787

Apart from (limited) ground what else did the parish provide for its deceased paupers – those from the workhouse or who were buried ‘by note’?

Coffins seem to have been provided

A burial service of sorts was read over paupers. Until 1806 this was a duty of the workhouse chaplain

From 1793 there seem to have been moves to improve the supervision of the parish burial grounds and efforts were made to improve the interment of the poor

From 1802 ‘Monday, Wednesday and Friday in every Week be the days appointed for the burial of the deceased Poor of this Parish’

Laying out was probably done by workhouse nurses for those paupers that died in the institution

Only very rarely were other funeral costs paid by the parish, and then only for previous office holders such as bearers, sextons and grave diggers

There is no sign of payment for any form of wake for the thousands of paupers buried in the eighteenth century: no payments for bread, beer, cheese etc.

Counting Pauper Burials..

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Estimated percentage pauper burials in London suburban parishes, 1827

Percentage pauper burials (individual parishes on x-axis)

The Select Committee’s returns are useful in that they tell us that:

Not all those buried from the workhouse were buried at parish expense – 17% of inmates of London suburban workhouses were buried by friends and relations rather than the parish

In many parishes many of those buried at parish expense were not dying from the local workhouse. Overall 41% of pauper burials were outdoor poor

The proportion buried at parish expense varied widely across the capital (low in the inner city parishes who frequently reported no pauper burials at all, or only a handful). The average in suburban London was 19% of all burials, but the range was from zero to 46% of all burials (Cripplegate)

That the attendance at workhouse pauper funerals may have been especially sparse. One quarter of workhouse pauper funerals were apparently not attended by friends or relations of the deceased

Still-born

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% age distribution of all pauper burials up to 1806 with stated ages in St Martin in the Fields

% age distribution of pauper burials

Aged over 60 40%25-59 37%15-24 4%5-14 12%

Infants 0-4 8%101%

Source: Samantha Williams, Poverty, gender and life-cycle under the English Poor Law, 1760-1834 (Boydell Press: Woodbridge, 2011), 42. Table gives known ages of those receiving a parish burial only.

Age at pauper burial in Campton and Shefford, Bedfordshire, 1760-1834

Still-born

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% age distribution of female pauper burials

% age distribution of male pauper burials

However such statistics are largely meaningless unless one knows the distribution of ages at death of all burials, not just pauper burials...

Still-born

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% Total burials with known ages that were pauper burials

% burials that were pauper burials

Still-born

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% female burials that were pauper burials

% male burials that were pauper burials

Adult females were more likely to be buried as paupers than males at all ages (stillbirths distorted by relatively small number distinguished by gender)

So the age-specific incidence of pauper burial reflects:

1) Life-cycle nature of poverty: elderly more likely to be buried as paupers.

2) Poor earning prospects for females in metropolitan economy

3) Possible that might also reflect sentiment marital status: unmarried and widowed less likely to have close relative to pay for burial

4) Infants and young children very unlikely to be buried as paupers . ‘The death of a child might come at a time when some of the cost could be borne by the family’ (Tomkins). Families anxious to avoid pauper funerals for their offspring…

What about change in the incidence of pauper burial over time?

Although pauper burial is said to be a potent symbol of status, exclusion and ‘failure’

There is virtually no hard data on this subject before (or apparently after) 1834

There is a lot of data on this from St Martin in the Fields.

This data actually corresponds closely to an independent count of pauper burials made by Rev. Anthony Hamilton, vicar of St Martin’s in the 1790s.

The number and proportion of pauper burials in St Martin’s is relatively easy to document with some precision – what this might mean, however, is more contentious

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Total number of pauper burials in St Martin in the Fields

Total number of pauper burials

The absolute figures prove to be a reasonable guide to the trend over time The percentage of burials at parish expense fell from around one third in the late 1740s, oscillated between 20 and 30% until around 1780, and then began to fall fairly steadily. This is, on the face of it, solid evidence that the proportion of people experiencing a pauper burial fell in the later eighteenth centuryThis is counter-intuitive, since real wages are known to have fallen in London form 1750

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Moving average (% Pauper burials)

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% Pauper children

% Pauper Man

% Pauper women

Breaking the figures down by ‘burial description’ (Man, Woman, Child) shows the same decline, although the proportion of children buried as paupers seems to fall earlier. Now proportions of pauper men and women fall only from the late 1780s.

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Pauper women

Pauper man

Pauper Child

The early peak in pauper burials was generated by relatively large numbers of dead pauper children

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% Pauper children of all pauper burials

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The early peak in pauper burials was partly generated by relatively large numbers of dead pauper children

Cost: The graph below shows the average cost of interment at named burial grounds Tavistock and the ‘New Burial Ground’ at the workhouse only, excluding paupers

The average cost of interment of adults who were not paupers fell from 1800, for reasons that are not clear but probably relate to changes within finely graded categories...

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Average cost of burial in pence of men or women excluding paupers

Average cost of burial of Children in NG, TG, WH excluding paupers

Since there was wage inflation towards the end of the eighteenth century, the costs of paying for a burial almost certainly fell in real terms.

Real burial costs of all adults 1747-1806. Days worked to afford average burial cost at lowest class of burial site

Money wages taken from Schwarz, 1985.

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Number of days Bricklayers wages required to bury an adult in NG or TG

Number of days Labourers required to pay for Adult burial in NG or TG

Money wages taken from Schwarz, 1985.

Fall in real cost of burying children ...

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Number of days Bricklayers wages required to pay for a childs burial in NG or TG

Number of days Labourers wages required to pay for a childs burial in NG or TG

Conclusions:It would be difficult to argue that pauper burials in this West End parish were ‘generous’ or provided a respectable interment for the vast majority of pauper dead

Pauper burials – incidence and chronology – prove to be partly related to movements in the ‘micro economy’ of the poor, their family circumstances at death etc..

Both age structure and changes over time suggest deployment of money to avoid pauper burials of particular family members - particularly for children whose burial costs were lower and how formed a falling proportion of pauper burials over time

Falling real costs may also explain fall in pauper burials (in all age groups) towards end of eighteenth century

Local fee regimes determined level and even incidence of pauper burials on the parish

The proportion of pauper burials from the workhouse probably rose over time, partly due to parish reluctance to excuse fees for those dying outside it

The End...