Stack 'em high

After having done the research behind the blog about surviving the inner city in Hull in 1847 I found an interesting aspect of Public Health which I had not really given much thought to. 

Amongst the hazards and risks to the population of Hull in that middle part of the 19th Century and over and above those posed by open ditches, fetid pools of sewage, bad drainage, pigstys and pollution from industrial processes was that of Intramural Interment. 

This relates to the common practice of using the precincts of a Church for the burial of bodies. 

At one time in Medieval history this was a custom reserved strictly for Priests, Holy persons and the wealthy. 

Over the centuries it became the common practice for all and sundry to be received after death in this way. 

A major flaw in this arrangement was that with a high mortality rate in the population in the Victorian Era the often confined spaces of churches and their immediate grounds became quickly overwhelmed with coffins. 

Furthermore, as urban areas expanded many great churches, originally long pre-dating any development became enclosed with houses and general buildings. 

The Sanitary Committee of Hull, in producing their Report on the state of Hull in 1847 highlighted what they called the "offensive burial grounds". The accumulation and decomposition of corpses stacked in many layers in and above the ground or having fallen out of their coffins had been going on for a number of years. 

The sheer volume of coffins in St Mary's Churchyard had rendered it necessary to remove three or four of them for a single funeral to take place. The High Church burial ground in Hull was also reported to be heaving with corpses

You can imagine the noxious vapours and matters injurious to health with conditions ripe for Cholera and dysentery. 

It was this type of indecent and dangerous aspects that brought about an outcry on the practice of intermural interment. 

Notices were issued to Clergy, Wardens and Gravediggers in 1853 about an Act of Parliament which had just been passed to allow the founding of cemeteries farther out of the main urban areas. 

It was not however until 1875 that it became forbidden to form a vault or grave within any church from a qualifying period.