By the close of the last century the London churchyards, and the additional burial-grounds provided by the parishes, were becoming so overcrowded, that it occurred to some adventurers to start cemeteries as private speculations; and it was greatly owing to their existence and to their abuse that the agitation arose which finally led to the passing of the “Act to amend the Laws concerning the Burial of the Dead in the Metropolis,” under which the metropolitan burial-grounds were closed. The speculation was found to be a successful one, and was imitated in different parts of London, until by the year 1835 there must have been at least fourteen burial-grounds in London carried on by private persons, besides some additional chapels with vaults under them conducted in the same way. A few of these grounds originated in connection with neighbouring places of worship, but were subsequently bought by private persons. In Central London there were (1) Spa Fields, Clerkenwell; (2) Thomas’ burial-ground, Golden Lane; (3) the New City Bunhill Fields, or the City of London burial-ground, Golden Lane. In North London there was (4) the New or Little Bunhill Fields, Church Street, Islington. In East London there were (5) Sheen’s burial-ground, Whitechapel; (6) Victoria Park Cemetery, Bethnal Green; (7) the East London Cemetery or Beaumont’s ground, Mile End; (8) Globe Fields burial-ground, Mile End Old Town; (9) the North-east London Cemetery, or Cambridge Heath burial-ground, or Peel Grove burial-ground, or Keldy’s Ground, Bethnal Green; (10) Gibraltar Walk burial-ground, Bethnal Green; (11) Ebenezer Chapel ground, Ratcliff Highway. And in South London (12) Butler’s burial-ground, Horselydown, or St. John’s; (13) the New Bunhill Fields, or Hoole and Martin’s ground, Deverell Street, New Kent Road; and (14) a ground in Ewer Street, Southwark.
The charges made for interments in these places were generally slightly lower than in the churchyards, in order to attract customers, and those who officiated at the funerals were, in many cases, not ministers of religion at all. In Butler’s burial-ground, for instance, the person who read the burial service (of the Church of England) wore a surplice, but he was merely an employé of the undertaker, who also acted as porter. In Hoole and Martin’s ground a Mr. Thomas Jenner was employed to officiate at funerals for £20 a year. He also read the burial service of the Church of England, but he was by trade a shoemaker, or a patten-maker, whose shop was close by. The owners of these private grounds were naturally tempted to crowd them to excess, and it is impossible to think of what took place in some of them without shuddering. No doubt practices as vile, as unwholesome, and as irreverent were carried on in many of the churchyards; but the over-crowding of the private grounds is so associated with the idea of private gloating over private gains that it is more repulsive.
One of the most notoriously offensive spots in London was Enon Chapel, Clement’s Lane. The chapel was built, and the vaults under it were made, as a speculation by a dissenting minister named Howse. The burial-fees were small, and the place was resorted to by the poor, as many as nine or ten burials often taking place on a Sunday afternoon. The space available for coffins was, at the highest computation, 59 feet by 29 feet, with a depth of 6 feet, and no less than 20,000 coffins were deposited there. In order to accomplish this herculean task it was the common practice to burn the older coffins in the minister’s house, under his copper and in his fireplaces. Between the coffins and the floor of the chapel there was nothing but the boards. In time the effluvium in the chapel became intolerable, and no one attended the services, but the vaults were still used for interments, so that “more money was made from the dead than from the living”—a state of affairs which existed in many of the private burial-places of the metropolis. As I shall have to refer again to the condition of these grounds in speaking of the closing of graveyards in London, I will not enlarge upon it any further here, except to quote from the evidence brought before the Select Committee which sat in 1842 to consider the question of Interment in Towns, respecting the Globe Fields burial-ground in Mile End, which is merely one example out of sixty-five examinations.
William Miller, called in and examined.
“1615. Chairman. What is your occupation?—A jobbing, labouring man, when I can get anything to do.”
“1616. Have you been a gravedigger in Globe Fields. Mile End?—Yes.”
“1617. Is that a private burying-ground?—Yes.”
“1618. To whom does it belong?—Mr. Thomas Tagg.”
“1620. Have many pits been dug in it for the depositing of bodies previously interred?—Yes.”
“1621. Where did they come from?—Out of the coffins which were emptied for others to go into the graves.”