Young Lady’s Picturesque Funeral
A somewhat unusual funeral cortège astonished the inhabitants of Brighton, England, traversing it from the west end to the railway station, one morning in the autumn of 1879. Concerning it some very romantic, highly imaginative, but somewhat incorrect rumors gained currency. The funeral was that of a young lady, named Ellen Elizabeth Parren, the daughter of William Parren, Esq., of Beckenham, in Kent, who had arrived in Brighton that day week, on a visit to her uncle, Captain Dunhill, of Brunswick Road. Though delicate, she was thought to be in her usual health; but on the following Monday she died somewhat suddenly. The deceased young lady, being a great favorite both in her own family and amongst her friends, it was decided that the obsequies should not partake of that gloomy and melancholy character which is the usually accepted mode of burial, but that it should be more inspiring and hopeful in its tone. The handsome funeral car was drawn by four grays, in the place of black horses, and the funeral coaches were represented by three landaus, each drawn by a pair of grays. The coffin, having been placed upon the car, was covered by a handsome white-and-gold pall, upon which were laid a number of beautiful wreaths of white flowers. The cortège as thus arranged left Brunswick Road, Hove, for the railway station, and then proceeded to Croydon. Here, the funeral procession having been rearranged and augmented by two other landaus drawn by pairs of grays and a number of private carriages, proceeded to Norwood Cemetery, where the remains were laid in the grave, the service being performed by two Nonconformist ministers, the Rev. Mr. Eldridge and the Rev. Mr. Jenkinson. The coffin was of polished oak, with plated silver ornaments and inscription plate, the latter having upon it the following: “Ellen Elizabeth, daughter of Wm. Parren, Esq., died August 25, 1879, aged 25.”
To curtail Funeral Bills
The will of Mr. Francis Offley Martin, formerly of Lincoln’s Inn, but late of 89 Onslow Gardens, one of the Charity Commissioners for England and Wales, who died on December 4th, 1878, was proved by William Smith, the sole executor, the personal estate being sworn under £7000. The testator, in his directions for his funeral, provides that no scarfs or hatbands be used or given away on the occasion either to the clergyman or any other person, as he wishes to break through the custom of running up funeral bills; and he declares that this prohibition is to extend also to gloves.
Full Dress Uniform
The late Surgeon-Major Wyatt, C.B., of the Coldstream Guards, who did good service to suffering humanity in Paris after the siege in 1871, desired in his will to be buried in the full-dress uniform of the regiment in which he had passed the greater part of his useful and honorable life. A Bible presented to him by his wife was to be placed in his coffin, and the horses used at his funeral were not to be “decorated”—plumed and draped, we presume—in any manner; the mutes and other attendants were not to wear hatbands or scarfs; each person attending his funeral was to wear in token of mourning only a black band of medium width—crape for relatives and cloth for friends; the gloves were to be black; but each person in the procession was to wear a camellia or other white flower in his buttonhole, as it was the worthy surgeon-major’s wish that the ceremony “should be as free as possible from all gloomy associations, and to be considered more as an occasion for rejoicing than for mourning.” Consonant with this leading idea was the expressed wish that no kind of widow’s cap or weeds should be worn by his relict, and no particle of crape should appear on the garments of his relations. Side by side with this, publication was given to a will announcing the desire of another testator to be buried with a hearse surmounted by sable ostrich-plumes, with horses duly panachés and caparisoned, mutes and bearers and “pages,” scarfs and flowing hatbands and brazen-tipped staves, and all the rest of that elaborate panoply of woe which finds so much favor in the eyes, and affords such comfortable entries in the books, of old-established undertakers. Quot homines, tot sententiæ, thus every man seems to be of a different mind concerning the ordering of his funeral.
Under the Oak Trees
Sir Charles Hastings requested that his body might “not be coffined, but swathed in any coarse stuff that would hold it together, and then buried in a spot designated by him. That the ground should then be planted with acorns, so that he might render a last service to his country by contributing to nourish some good English oaks.”
An Abnormal Burial
Lord Truro, of England, whose residence was at Falconhurst, on the summit of Shooter’s Hill, afforded a novel example of funeral simplicity. On the demise of Lady Truro, Lord Truro having, according to her desire, placed the body in a lightly constructed box, so that the process of decay might not be arrested, buried it himself in a grave dug in the lawn fronting the house, at a spot she had selected for the purpose. The grave is about four feet deep, and a marble monument has been raised upon it.