Living with the Dead: Burial, Cremation and Memory

Ken Worpole

Issue 392, vol.98, Winter 2009

Cremation grew in popularity in the 20^th century, being regarded as more rational and efficient, as less costly (since there was no grave to be maintained long term), and as less land-hungry (particularly in the green-belt surroundings of major cities). Populations found themselves gradually conditioned to the practice. During the First World War, hundreds of thousands of young men had been buried in mass graves. From mid-20^th century, the Catholic Church began withdrawing opposition. Later, with the rise of secularism, familiarity with churchyards and their quaint practices diminished.

And the sense of local attachment further weakened when new cemeteries tended to be located outside the city limits.

Crematorium services are perceived to be both short and overly functional – and, in Britain, crematoria are widely scattered across the country. So, many people take the ashes away and dispose of them in a private ritual – for which the settings are more directly associated with personal memories and meanings (and more celebratory of the life lived rather than of a life lost). Once upon a time the dead belonged to everybody – but that collective sense of ownership has waned.

Many European countries re-use graves. In places, burial rights may be granted for as little as ten years, after which the remains are removed and interred elsewhere. And, in Britain, some graveyards which have long filled to capacity are now found to be unsafe, littered, vandalised and unkempt.

In general, the cemetery is ceasing to retain it traditional hallmark as a place of inscription and communal memory. Instead, memory is often created elsewhere – whether at home, or through the distribution of letters, photographs and personal tributes, or in public memorial meetings, or with the planting of a memorial tree or the commissioning of a memorial bench. This is all part of the current trend of individualisation – which serves to weaken collective identities.

Ken Worpole is the author of many books on social policy, landscape and architecture, and was a member of the UK government Urban Green Spaces Task Force, and an Adviser to the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) and the Heritage Lottery Fund. His books include, Last Landscapes: the architecture of the cemetery in the West (2003), and most recently, Modern Hospice Design: the architecture of palliative care (2009). He is currently a Senior Professor in The Cities Institute at London Metropolitan University.