Adapted from a quiz prepared by J. B. Bradfield, who is the author of 'Green Burial - The laws and requirements surrounding Green and 'd-i-y' burials', a booklet prepared for The Natural Death Centre, and published by The Institute for Social Inventions, 20 Heber Road, London NW2 6AA (tel 081 208 2853; fax 081 452 6434), April '93, £4-95 incl. p&p. The booklet will give authoritative chapter and verse for many of the topics that this quiz touches on. For the answers, see below.
(2) Everyone must be buried in a coffin?
(3) A service of some sort must be carried our before every burial?
(4a) Early Quakers were often buried in their own gardens?
(5a) There is no law to prevent you being buried in your own garden?
(6a) There is nothing in law to prevent DIY funerals and DIY burials?
(7a&b) Burial Acts and Regulations only apply to Christian graveyards and cemeteries owned by local councils, not Quakers, Jews, Muslims, etc?
(8a) There is no legal requirement to consult an Environmental Health Officer on any matter prior to a DIY burial?
(9) Only the Home Office can give legal consent to a DIY burial?
(10) Planning permission must be obtained for a
(i) solitary grave in a garden?
(ii) small number of graves in private land?
(iii) charitable burial ground?
(11) In law no grave can be within 200 yards, 100 yards, 1 yard of a house?
(12) It is illegal to expose a body within sight of a road?
(13a) It is legal to use your own car to take a body for burial?
(14a) Social work departments manage graveyards in one part of Britain?
(15a) Burials are more 'Green' than cremations?
(16a) Cremation dates back to the stone age?
(17a) Cremation was reintroduced into this country about 110 years ago?
(18a) The Vatican prohibited cremation until about 30 years ago?
(19a) About 1,700 years ago burial gradually replaced cremation?
(20a) Those who pressed about 150 to 200 years ago for cemeteries as we now know them, were dismissed as dangerous revolutionaries?
(21a) Those who pressed for the reintroduction of cremations were dismissed as cranks?
(22a) About 250 years ago, Protestants would have been outraged by flowers on a hearse?
(23a) About 150 years ago, it would have been possible to find strong views against having beautiful flowers in graveyards?
(24a) About 200 years ago, a well-known poet insisted that town cemeteries were inadequate because they failed to provide the comfort which could be experienced from wildlife in fields and woods?
(25a) Another poet at the same time claimed cemeteries were spiritually inadequate?
(26a) The use of wreaths on coffins dates back about 120 years only?
(27a) Town cemeteries came about following the appalling state of graveyards?
(28a) Memorial parks are now replacing cemeteries in some countries?
(29a) Not all funerals must be 'decent and orderly'?
(30a) Viewing the body declined amongst the higher social strata about 90 years ago, having been a common practice?
(31a) Muslims prefer to carry coffins and not leave this to undertakers?
(32) Hindus prefer graves to be mounded?
(33)(i) Quakers have elaborate memorial stones?
(iia) Quakers do not engrave the name of the month or year in which death occurred (eg 1st of 12th month)?
(34a) Old graves in churchyards pointing north-south may be those of suicides, strangers or dissenters?
(35a) Cemeteries have always provided separate burial areas for people with different or no beliefs?
(36a&b) Cemeteries started out providing separate buildings for Christian and non-Christian services?
(37a) Cardboard coffins can now be purchased?
(38a) Coffins made of tropical hardwoods, contribute to the death of tropical rainforests?
(39a) Undertakers have a virtual monopoly on the sale of coffins?
(40a) Before 100 years ago, bodies were 'watched' around the clock in the deceased's own house, prior to burial?
(4l) Older people fear having a hospital or local council burial because of:
(ia) associations with paupers' graves?
(iia) insanitary conditions associated with these?
(iiia) fears about being dug up, the ground being used for many others?
(iva) fears about being butchered, a penalty transferred from the crime of murder after execution to the 'crime' of destitution?
(va) fears of being buried in the stigmatised part of the ground?
(42a) Being left in a gibbet swung from a tree was thought preferable to having the hospital or workhouse send your body for 'dissection'?
(43) There were riots in workhouses when residents thought they were being fed the 'dissected' bodies of former residents?
(44a) It was not uncommon for the bones of the poor to be dug up and burnt?
(45a) As a means of obtaining money and food, those in poverty were once used as 'sin eaters', by consuming food which had been placed on corpses?
(46a) Unsuspecting vagrants might be tricked into becoming 'sin eaters'?
(47a) Whilst the poor could be mutilated or deported for possessing dead game, those who snatched bodies from wakes were largely ignored?
(48a) Only the rich could afford to defy a law requiring everyone to wear woollen shrouds, when linen was preferred and thought lucky?
(49a) People with disabilities were exploited as symbols of death, by having them lead funeral processions?
(50a) The poor were buried in winding sheets or shrouds, until coffins came to be used purely for public health reasons?
(51a) Coffins were originally for the rich - carpenters could be fined for making one for a person of low social status?
Additional comments are as follows:
(7) True/false; apply to commercial cemeteries also.
(9) False; as no consents required.
(10i&ii&iii) False; if use of area remains unchanged. The problem is that too much scope exists for planning authorities to interpret differently. The law is still being tested and appeals will therefore be very important.
(11 all) False; but 'one yard' could cause pollution and would then be illegal.
(12) 'Indecent exposure' only illegal?
(14) True; Scotland.
(24) True; Wordsworth.
(29) True; see (12) above.
(25) True; Edwards.
(32) False; as cremations
(36) True/False; They were for 'Dissenters' which meant Baptists, Non-Conformists, etc, who did not want Church of England settings, etc. As Dissenters were also seen as heretical in some quarters, unbelievers may have come within the Dissenter category.
(40) True; waited for early signs of decay.
(41 iv) True; though may not be aware that fears transmitted through the generations since 1832 have this at the core.
(43) False; as to riots - but there were disturbances due to such real fears. There were street riots but not to my knowledge in workhouses. At least one court case arose out of disurbance in a workhouse (Richardson, R., 1988:222, 'Death, Dissection and the Destitute', Penguin Books).
(50) True. The Poor Law introduced the recycled coffin and only stopped this at a time when 'notifiable diseases' were a public health concern.
J. B. Bradfield, 7 Knox Road, Harrogate, North Yorkshire HG1 3EF.
Previous / Next / 1993 Social Inventions Journal Contents