sherlock60 | Discussion Post: The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax

This week, the canon story we’re looking at is The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax and the chosen topic is Funerals and Mourning.

A few facts:

💮 ...since the mortality rate, particularly for children, was so high, funeral traditions gained particular importance as the century progressed.

As the 19th century began, Britain began to see the emergence of a financially stable middle class, and with it, came improved life expectancies. Early deaths were viewed increasingly as tragic and deserving of elaborate and grand-scale mourning. Funeral and mourning practices were further ritualized when Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Consort Alfred, died. She went into deep mourning for the remainder of her life and set a precedent which many of her British subjects followed. Death practices (and related superstitions) became more elaborate as the century progressed; however, toward the end of the 1800s, the ostentatious show had begun to diminish, and by the 1890s, funerary practices were relegated to a prescribed set of social rules, and countless articles and books were written chronicling the “etiquette of funerals.” [Victorian Monsters]

💮 ...there seems to have been a funeral available for everyone as evidenced in a mid-century advertisement in The Times that offered six classes of funerals ranging in price from 21 pounds for a first-class burial down to 3 pounds, five shillings for the sixth class. [Dr Bruce Rosen]

💮 That the funeral business was an excellent trade can hardly be doubted. One writer in ‘Leisure Hour’ in 1862 describes the business as extortionate:

In numberless instances the interment of the dead is in the hands of miscreants, whom it is almost flattery to compare to the vulture, or the foulest carrion bird. . . the morality is, in their hands, to use a plain word, robbery.

The bereaved were often led into spending more than was either necessary or desirable and paying inflated prices for no purpose other than to increase the profits of those in the industry. [Dr Bruce Rosen]

💮 If one was attending a funeral one needed to dress accordingly. There were outfitters prepared to provide appropriate clothing and other elements to the discerning mourner. The London General Mourning Warehouse located at 247 and 249 Regent street advertised in The Times (1 November 1845) that "millinery, dresses, cloaks, shawls, mantles, &c., of the best quality can be purchased at the most reasonable prices." Business must have been good, for by the 1870s it had taken over properties on either side and was now advertised at 245-251 Regent Street from where it offered, in The Illustrated London News (11 January 1873), "a Black Dress made up complete, sufficient Print for a Dress, also a Bonnet, Mantle or Shawl and Gloves, for 3gs." In addition to such large firms, there were many smaller ones and even those that specialized in particular articles of clothing. The Misses Lewis, for example, advertised as "mourning milliners" in the late 1840s. [Dr Bruce Rosen]

💮 Coffins in the early 19th century ranged from very cheap, flimsy and undecorated coffins used for pauper burials to the hugely expensive, elaborate and richly embellished coffins of the elite. By this time, technological developments meant that cheap metal fittings were available to a wider range of people than ever before and by the mid-19th century, hundreds of tons of metal were buried each year in the form of coffin furniture.

Coffins could be covered in fabric, often black, although a variety of colours were used, attached with decoratively arranged upholstery pins. A cheaper option was to have a painted coffin. Coffins destined for burial in vaults were triple-shelled, with the middle layer being lead, and these could weigh up to a quarter of a ton. The ‘coffin furniture’... included a range of metal fittings made of tinplate, lead, brass, iron or sometimes other metals.

The engraved breastplate was the most important item and usually the first to be added, if a coffin had any fittings at all. By the 1880s even otherwise plain pauper coffins were described as having plates. These usually included the name, age and date of death of the deceased and could be very large and highly decorated, in contrast with the small, plain name plates found on coffins today. As well as the “glorious confusion” of motifs, these could also be painted for added effect. [Sarah Hoile]

💮 What sort of coffin? ...a standard French polished oak or elm? A sawdust filled mattress would have added lavender and charcoal to combat the smell and absorb moisture. If a family vault was used a lead lined coffin would be needed which was expensive and would weigh 4-5 hundredweight including the body… Bamboo or woven coffins were available too… The gentry would have a coffin covered with material, velvet or satin, with embellishments. Sometimes embellishment was used to cover flaws in the wood. Jarvis’s patented coffins of 1810 were designed to prevent grave robbing and introduced the safety bell and flag in case the “deceased” woke up.

[The] coffin would be kept in the front parlour until the funeral. If no parlour was available then [the deceased], in his coffin, would go on two kitchen chairs covered by a tablecloth. [Liz Carter]

💮 The basic Victorian hearse was an elaborate carriage, black or white (in the case of children), with glass sides, and silver and gold decorations. This basic layout could be dressed-up according to the prominence of its occupant or the purse strings of his family. Embellishments included multiple black horses drawing the carriage, velvet coverings for the coffin and the horses, ostrich plumes decorating every corner, horse, and attendant, or even an entire canopy of ostrich feathers covering the hearse. Flowers surrounded the coffin and would be visible through the glass windows. There were also smaller white hearses designed just for children. They were pulled by ponies and accompanied by mourners on foot instead of in carriages (Alirangues). [Victorian Monsters]

💮 The mute’s job was to stand vigil outside the door of the deceased, then accompany the coffin, wearing dark clothes, looking solemn and usually carrying a long stick (called a wand) covered in black crape… In Britain, most mutes were day-labourers, paid for each individual job… Mutes died out in the 1880s/90s and were a memory by 1914… What did for them most of all… was becoming figures of fun – mournful and sober at the funeral, but often drunk shortly afterwards. [Eugene Byrne]

💮 The parish churchyard was the most common place [to bury the deceased] but this might lead to some conflict over who should carry out the service if the deceased was of a different religious persuasion. Public cemeteries opened in London in the early 19th century. If a death occurred in the workhouse the Creed Register would contain details of the deceased’s religion. Cremations were not popular. They were not legal until 1885… [Liz Carter]

💮 Although expected to mourn, women were generally advised against attending funerals, especially for those nearest and dearest to them. Cassell's Household Guide for 1878 discourages the practice pointing out that it is something done by female relatives in the poorer classes. It may also have been the case that the frequent practice of drinking both before and after the funeral not only by the funeral party, but by the undertaker and his assistants would have been upsetting. [Dr Bruce Rosen]

💮 While the lower classes would often dye their existing garments black in response to the death of a loved one, the upper classes -- and later middle classes -- bought new wardrobes of black gowns, parasols, bonnets and brooches. Expensive mourning crepe, a stiff crinkled silk gauze with a matte finish, became the "iconic fabric of bereavement," according to [Jessica] Regan [assistant curator at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute]. The discerning sought out unfading black textiles, since true black -- black that wouldn't fade to brown or blue -- was as much a display of personal wealth as it was of grief… "(Mourning dress) was a way of sharing one's grief with the community, (but) it certainly was also a display of economic and social status." [Allyssia Alleyne]

💮 Not only was the family expected to mourn (and to dress appropriately), the family's servants might be required to wear mourning clothing. [Dr Bruce Rosen]

💮 Aside from the clothes that were so much a part of mourning there were all the little things that had to be done and the appropriate appurtenances ranging from mourning envelopes and paper and black sealing wax to mourning jewellery. The selection of items was extensive… [Dr Bruce Rosen]

💮 In addition there were the personal mementos of the deceased. In a period when death was likely to take people at a younger age and the body was kept in the home until the funeral, momentos provided a kind of therapy and a physical remembrance. It was a time before the widespread popularity of photography meant that one could go to one's photo album and see pictures from happier days and so rings, brooches and lockets containing hair from the dead were often kept by the immediate family and sometimes even by particularly close friends. [Dr Bruce Rosen]

💮 The invention of the daguerreotype in 1839 by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre gave rise to post-mortem photographs. A common practice would be to pose the deceased in a realistic domestic setting. Adults were posed in a setting that reflected their profession as naturally as possible. Children were posed with family members, sometimes with a toy or sitting with a sibling, often times as though they were sleeping. Dead people were sometimes posed standing, with the aid of hidden clamps and stands. In rare cases, "open" eyes would be painted on top of closed eyelids. Since photography was expensive, a post-mortem photo might be the only photo the family had of the deceased. [Lisa Waugh]

💮 The mourning process was rigidly governed by convention. Clocks in the house were stopped at the time of death and mirrors were either draped or turned to the wall. Curtains were drawn. The length of time for mourning appropriate for a widow or widower, a child or a parent was clearly spelt out. Deep mourning, for example, for a widow might be two years, followed by a period of half-mourning. Within these times codes of dress, especially for women were quite detailed as were what was and was not appropriate activity. Men, because they still had to carry on the business of the day, were less bound by convention, but even they had to adhere to the appropriate dress and behaviour expected from them for their place in the family. Such patterns were followed by those in the "better" classes. Death in the lower and labouring classes was less bound up with the rituals. This, of course, was seen by the middle-classes as evidence for shallowness in feeling and a general lack of respectability. [Dr Bruce Rosen]

💮 For the wealthy, the burial of a loved one was as much about “being seen” and doing things “properly” as it was about the process of grief and mourning. However, things were a little different in the lower classes. Because the death rate (particularly for children) was so high, many lower class families would plan ahead and save money to ensure that the deaths of their children would be handled in an appropriate manner. Funerals were so costly, yet so important, that lower class families often went without the necessities of life because the family refused to spend their funerary funds on things like food, clothing, and shelter… The necessity of burial money was perpetuated by several fears, fears relegated primarily to the poor. Families who were unable to provide for a proper funeral and burial of their loved ones were forced to rely on the local Poor Union who would provide the bare minimum in burial – a pauper’s funeral. The Poor Union buried those unable to afford their own services in a common pauper’s grave, without a headstone and with very little ceremony. [Victorian Monsters]

💮 Another very real concern was due to the Anatomy Act (1832), enacted to combat the body-snatching. This law legalized the dissection of people who died in prisons, asylums, or workhouses. Unless a relative came forward within seven days of an inmate’s death, prepared to pay for a coffin and a churchyard burial, the inmate’s body could legitimately be sent to a teaching institution for dissection… Because of the incredibly high demand for cadavers, there was a great deal of corruption existing in the system. This law (and the shady practices which accompanied it) made it much more likely that lower class individuals without the money for a proper burial would end up on a dissection table, lending greater fears about the final fate of a deceased family member (Brine). [Victorian Monsters]

💮 A good send-off was expensive but important, even to poorer families. The “Rolls Royce” would be a black lacquered carriage pulled by horses. The hire cost of one of these in 1887 was £100. A handcart, or bier cart, carried by 2-4 men was the most common form of transport for the coffin. The parish may have had a pall for hire which was a black cloth to cover the coffin. A pallbearer carried the cover. In the 1860s an average cost of a working man’s funeral would be £5 when an annual salary was about £20. To ease the financial burden of funerals people often paid a penny per week into a burial fund. [Liz Carter]

💮 Burial Clubs were to be found in 19th century Britain. This was a time of high death rates, especially among children, and poor working-class families were fearful that they would be unable to pay for a decent funeral for their loved ones and would have to rely on the local Poor Union to provide a pauper's funeral: buried in a common pauper's grave without a headstone. There could also be a danger that they would end up on an anatomy school's dissecting table by virtue of the Anatomy Act (1832).

To help them, churches, trade unions, and other associations, formed benefit societies which they called Burial Clubs. The scheme was that weekly payments to the club would ensure the funeral expenses of the burial would be paid for, regardless of how long the person had been a member. The amount to be paid depended on the type of funeral desired and age of the person… [History House]

💮 By the later years of the century, the pattern and habits of mourning had begun to change. Cremation was more widely accepted and as Richard Davey noted in 1889, men no longer wore "full black for a fixed number of months after the decease of a near relation, and even content themselves with a black hat-band and dark-coloured garments." The funeral ceremony was becoming less elaborate and it was much more common to send flowers to the grave than in earlier years. [Dr Bruce Rosen]

💮 William Banting (c. December 1796 – 16 March 1878) was a notable English undertaker… In the early 19th century, the family business of William Banting of St. James’s Street, London, was among the most eminent companies of funeral directors in Britain. As funeral directors to the Royal Household itself, the Banting family conducted the funerals of King George III in 1820, King George IV in 1830, the Duke of Gloucester in 1834, the Duke of Wellington in 1852, Prince Albert in 1861, Prince Leopold in 1884, Queen Victoria in 1901, and King Edward VII in 1910.

Not really pertinent to this discussion but too interesting to leave out: Formerly obese, [Banting] is also known for being the first to popularise a weight loss diet based on limiting the intake of carbohydrates, especially those of a starchy or sugary nature. [Wikipedia]

💮 The state funeral of Queen Victoria took place in February 1901… Victoria left strict instructions regarding the service and associated ceremonies and instituted a number of changes, several of which set a precedent for state (and indeed ceremonial) funerals that have taken place since. First, she disliked the preponderance of funereal black; henceforward, there would be no black cloaks, drapes or canopy, and Victoria requested a white pall for her coffin. Second, she expressed a desire to be buried as "a soldier's daughter". The procession, therefore, became much more a military procession, with the peers, privy counsellors and judiciary no longer taking part en masse. Her pallbearers were equerries rather than dukes (as had previously been customary), and for the first time, a gun carriage was employed to convey the monarch's coffin. Third, Victoria requested that there should be no public lying in state. This meant that the only event in London on this occasion was a gun carriage procession from one railway station to another: Victoria having died at Osborne House (on the Isle of Wight), her body was conveyed by boat and train to Waterloo Station, then by gun carriage to Paddington Station, and thence by train to Windsor for the funeral itself. (It was in Windsor that the horses broke away from the gun carriage, necessitating the recruitment of a nearby contingent of sailors to pull the coffin.) [Wikipedia]

Some useful resources:

Victorian Funerals and Mourning By Bruce Rosen, on Victorian History.

The Dictionary of Victorian London This is a link to the main index. Click on ‘Death & Dying’.

Cassells Household Guide, New and Revised Edition (4 Vol.) c.1880s - Death in the Household On The Dictionary of Victorian London.

character of funerals and undertakers On the Dictionary of Victorian London.

Funerals - Cremation On the Dictionary of Victorian London.

Funerals and Undertakers in Dickens's novels On The Victorian Web.

Victorian Mourning & Funerary Practices On Victorian Monsters. (Includes photographs of a child and a woman in their coffins, examples of post-mortem photographs of children, and a photograph of a Victorian dissecting room - the dissected bodies are seen from a distance.)

The Victorian Funeral By Liz Carter, on MK Heritage.

Q&A: What are the origins of the ‘mutes’ that attended Victorian funerals? By Eugene Byrne, on HistoryExtra.

What was a Burial Club? On History House.

Death and Mourning On A Victorian.

The Victorians: Life and Death By Professor Sir Richard Evans FBA, on the Gresham College website. Transcript and video of talk.

House of Mourning - Victorian Mourning & Funeral Customs in the 1890s On Victoriana Magazine.

Taken from life: The unsettling art of death photography By Bethan Bell, on the BBC website. (I wouldn’t call any of these respectful photographs of deceased adults and children ‘unsettling’. But they are deeply poignant and of course you might find them upsetting, so you might want to approach the article with caution.)

Mourning Fashion History By Pauline Weston Thomas, on Fashion Era.

Links: Death, Mourning & Funeral Customs On Victorian Voices. (Not all links to the various articles work.)

Death and Ritual in Victorian Society On Don't Know Dickens.

Glamour and grieving: How the Victorians dressed for death By Allyssia Alleyne, on CNN Style.

Victorian Funeral Customs and Superstitions By Shelley Dziedzic, on Friends of Oak Grove Cemetery.

10 Fascinating Death Facts from the Victorian Era By Elaine Furst, on Listverse.

Death in the city: the grisly secrets of dealing with Victorian London's dead An abridged extract taken from Dirty Old London: The Victorian Fight Against Filth, by Lee Jackson. On the Guardian website.

A Victorian Obsession With Death By D. Lyn Hunter, on the Berkeleyan.

22 Morbid Death and Mourning Customs from the Victorian Era By Lisa Waugh, on Ranker.

Hair Wreaths: A Victorian Mourning Custom By Joy Neighbors, on A Grave Interest.

Early Victorian Coffins and Coffin Furniture By Sarah Hoile, on Cemetary Club. ...coffin furniture..., that is, the metal fittings used to adorn the coffin.

Cremation: Modern era On Wikipedia.

Cat Funerals In The Victorian Era By Mimi Matthews, on her own website.

Funeral processions in early 20th century Britain By Florence Cole, on Join me in the 1900s.

What were Victorian pauper's graves like? On OpenLearn. An account of a tragedy in a London graveyard gives an insight into the way the poor were buried in 19th Century England.

Safety coffin On Wikipedia.

A victorian undertakers hand-painted armorial funeral sign/ Modern photograph of a sign from 1890. On Selling Antiques.

William Banting On Wikipedia.

The Funeral of Queen Victoria: 2nd February 1901 On The Royal Windsor Web Site.

Funeral of Queen Victoria On Wikipedia.

History on film: Queen Victoria's funeral By Joanna Bourke, on HistoryExtra. Joanna Bourke examines newsreel footage of Queen Victoria’s “remarkable” funeral procession in 1901…

Queen Victoria's Funeral (1901) On YouTube, posted by British Pathé. That is, film of her actual funeral. 14 minutes, 56 seconds.

Please feel free to discuss this topic in the comments.

Please also feel free to comment about the canon story itself or any related aspects outside this week’s theme. For example, any reactions, thoughts, theories, fic recs, favourite adaptations of the canon story… Or any other contribution you wish to make. And if you have any suggestions for fic prompts springing from this week's story, please feel free to share those in the comments as well.