Sepulture in 1900 London: Undertakers

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Arthur H. Beavan, writing in Imperial London in 1901, had this to say about undertakers:

Just a few words with regard to undertakers - so inseparably connected with sepulture.

They had in 1900, as few people were aware, a newspaper entirely devoted to their interests, The Undertakers' Journal, staid and highly respectable as befitedt its cause.

There existed also a British Institute of Undertakers, whose members met convivially every year, when toasts were proposed and gaily drunk, and much jollity prevailed; for, contrary to the popular idea, undertakers, out of business hours, are particularly light-hearted as a class, and have a keen sense of humour, as shown in the following advertisement of one of the craft, retiring from business, who wanted to dispose of his excellent connection: -

"Sanitary arrangements much neglected; mortality from fevers excessively high; total death-rate 10.7 higher than any town within radius of fifty miles; one trade competitor (carpenter) only. Excellent opening for energetic man willing to put his heart into the work."

Nothing has so much changed as funeral customs.

Gone are the solemn mutes who used to stand outside every house of mourning in London.

Hatchments are rarely put up, except on the houses of the great.

Funeral coaches were by 1900 plain broughams, indistinguishable from other carriages.

Shut-up hearses with nodding plumes at the four corners and on the horses' heads had vanished; and open cars had taken their place, while palls had been abandoned.

Coffins were no longer hideous black objects studded all over with nails of the same colour.

Mourners had ceased to wear grotesque scarves on their hats; and the baked funeral meats which invariably followed a "burying" had been done away with in cities at least; but flowers, that in 1850 were never seen, were used by all classes of people in overpowering quantities, though they were not regarded with unqualified approval by the "trade," a leading undertaker having been heard to remark, as he contemplated an unusually fine oaken coffin of his own construction, as it lay upon trestles awaiting removal, covered with beautiful floral emblems, "Yes, they are very pretty, but you see they completely hide our work. That's the pity of it!"

(It is said that in one way or another, £50,000 worth of floral memorials were used at the obsequies of Queen Victoria.)

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