In November 1854, a train made
its maiden journey from an annex of Waterloo railway station to the Surrey
countryside. Rather than merry day-trippers looking forward to a bucolic break,
it bore passengers dressed in mourning.
There were no cases and trunks. The freight consisted of
coffins. Coffins containing corpses.
The train was destined for Brookwood Cemetery, near Woking.
The first burial at the site - twins, stillborn to a Mrs Hore
from Ewer Street in Southwark - was in an unmarked grave, the standard for
those whose loved ones could not afford anything more.
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The reason mourners faced a 46-mile (74km) round trip to bury their dead was because London's rapid growth had pushed the population to 2.5 million. The capital, although home to hundreds of churchyards, was running out of room to house the dead.
The situation was described
in an 1852 publication called What I Saw In London by David W. Bartlett, an
American author and academic.
He wrote: "Many times
in our walks about London we have noticed the graveyards attached to the
various churches, for in almost every case, they are elevated considerably
above the level of the sidewalk, and in some instances, five or six feet above
it.
"The reason was clear enough - it was an accumulation for years of human dust, and that too in the center of the largest city in the world."
The number of bodies far
outweighed the capacity of the burial grounds. St Martin's Church, measuring
295ft by 379ft (90m by 116m), received 14,000 bodies in 10 years.
A vault at a Methodist
Church in New Kent Road was found to have 2,000 coffins piled one upon the
other.
William Chamberlain, a
grave-digger at St Clement's, gave evidence to a House of Commons select
committee in 1842.
He said the ground was so
full of bodies that he could not make a new grave "without coming into
other graves". He and his colleagues were then instructed to chop up the
coffins and bodies to make room for new ones.
"We have come to
bodies quite perfect, and we have cut parts away with choppers and
pickaxes," he said.
"We have opened the
lids of coffins, and the bodies have been so perfect that we could distinguish
males from females, and all those have been chopped and cut up.
"During the time I was
at this work, the flesh has been cut up in pieces and thrown up behind the
boards which are placed to keep the ground up where the mourners are standing -
and when time mourners are gone this flesh has been thrown and jammed down, and
the coffins taken away and burnt."
Bartlett also cited an assistant gravedigger who recounted this gory tale:
"One day I was trying
the length of a grave to see if it was long and wide enough, and while I was
there the ground gave way, and a body turned right over, and the two arms came
and clasped me round the neck".
It is obvious why a burial
ground outside London was considered essential.
In 1851 parliament passed "An Act to Amend the Laws Concerning the Burial of the Dead in the Metropolis" - otherwise known as the Burials Act.
The following year, the
London Necropolis and National Mausoleum Company (the LNC) was formed with the
ambition to create London's one and only burial ground forever.
The company went to great
efforts to make the new cemetery on the former Woking Common so attractive that
Londoners would not even consider burying their loved ones elsewhere.
An illustration from the Brookwood prospectus promised eternal
peace
A prospectus advertising the new site declared it was so
delightful that "solitude herself might here find retirement".
The 23-mile (37km) distance between London and Brookwood meant
that the traditional horse-drawn funeral cart (plodding at an appropriately
funereal pace) could take up to 12 hours. Although Brookwood was the answer to
the overcrowding, a better way to get there was also necessary.
Fortuitously, the newly established South Western Main Line ran
alongside the border of the cemetery.
Notable graves
John Singer Sargent Painter.
Plot 35
An American artist, who
spent most of his life in London. He has been described as the most fashionable
portrait artist since Sir Thomas Lawrence.
Horatia Nelson Johnson Nelson's
granddaughter. Plot 24
Horatia was the seventh of
nine children born to the daughter of Lord Nelson and Emma Hamilton.
Sarah Eleanor Smith Widow
of Captain Edward J. Smith, Captain of the Titanic. Plot 25
Mrs Smith was gravely
injured when she was knocked down by a taxi in London and died in April 1931.
Dame Rebecca West is an Author,
reporter, and literary critic. Plot 81
Her book 'Henry James'
(published 1916) established her literary reputation. She was a supporter of
the suffragettes. And she found herself on Hitler's blacklist.
Thomas Humphrey Cricketer is known as the Pocket Hercules. Plot 82
Mr Humphrey earned his nickname because he was short and could hit powerfully. During his career he scored 6,687 runs in 381 innings, being not out 18 times.
The Necropolis route passed
Richmond Park and Hampton Court on its way out of the capital, scenery
described by one of the railway's founders as "comforting" and once
again appealing to the moneyed classes.
Not everybody was
convinced. The London and South Western Railway, operating out of Waterloo
Bridge station, was particularly squeamish about the idea of their own
passengers using carriages that had earlier been used to carry coffins and
funeral parties.
The Bishop of London,
Charles Blomfield, was also horrified at combining the railway and burial
services. He addressed a House of Commons Select Committee, stating the
"hurry and bustle" connected with rail travel rendered it
"inconsistent with the solemnity of a Christian funeral".
The bishop was also
concerned about the remains of those who had led "decent and wholesome
lives traveling alongside those whose lifestyles had been morally lax".
Societal objections
included discomfort at the idea of mixing social classes and the mixture of
different denominations, or even completely different religions.
The solution was to make
the Necropolis train an entirely separate service, with its own carriages and
timetable, and six separate categories of tickets for the living and the dead.
The coffins were segregated
so that the bodies of Anglican worshippers traveled behind the carriages for
Anglican mourners, and the same for those of all other (or no) religions.
First, second, and third-class travel was provided for conformists and another section with the same
classes for non-conformists.
The first class allowed
families to select a site anywhere in the cemetery and, for an additional cost,
the erection of a permanent memorial. It cost about £3, today's equivalent of
about £270.
Second-class funerals
limited the choice of location but cost just £1 (about £90 today). The third class
was reserved for paupers' funerals and those buried at a parish's expense.
The offices, morgue, and
chapels of the London Necropolis Railway were based underneath the arches on
Westminster Bridge Road.
Trains ran every day and
would be met at Brookwood by a team of black horses to haul the carriages down
the slope into the cemetery.
Fares were limited by the
act of parliament establishing the LNC, and they remained unchanged for the
first 85 years of its 87-year operation.
Anecdotally, unscrupulous
travelers wanting to go to the Woking area, including many golfers, would
disguise themselves as mourners to take advantage of the bargain rates.
The track and buildings
were demolished.
Post-war, funeral train
services did not restart. Motor cars and hearses were becoming more popular and
were more convenient.
The London Necropolis
Railway had come to the end of the line.
Today, the Westminster
Bridge Road terminus building still stands as Westminster Bridge House and the
track bed and platforms still exist at Brookwood.
National Rail also
installed a section of track at the Brookwood site to commemorate the venture.
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