Journal Article

Secularity and burial space in 19th century England

Julie Rugg

2019

Overview

This paper challenges the contention that secularity is always central to the idea of the cemetery. In largely England a ‘culture war’ was enjoined between supporters of the Church of England and various denom- inations of Protestant Dissent. The cemetery was a focus of conflict, centred on the degree of control exercised by the Established Church. This conflict did not reflect demand for ‘civic’ funerals. Protestant Nonconformists sought to secure burial space where they might express their own beliefs. Through the 19th century and up until the First World War, the framing of burial law was accompanied by divisive debate. Cemeteries came to signify both religious freedom and the oppressive influence of the Established Church. Cemetery establishment was also accompanied by regulation on sanitary burial management, but this did not define burial space as being innately secular. Rather, in England the cemetery was, and remains, a spatial co-production of sanitary technology, municipal bureaucracy and spiritual expression.

• Publisher: Universidad de Murcia
• Subject: Burial / Burial Acts / Cemeteries / Nonconformist / Secularity