1879: Public Health (Interments) Act

Very few histories have recognised the Public Health (Interments) Act (42 & 43 Vict. c. 31), passed in 1879 and also known as the ‘Marten Act’, after the MP who steered it through Parliament as a private member’s bill. The Public Health (Interment) Act sat entirely to one side of the Burial Acts and created an alternative method for establishing a cemetery. Rather than comply with the complex regulatory framework of the Burial Acts, sanitary authorities could instead use ‘Marten’s Act’ to establish cemeteries using the Cemeteries Clauses Act 1847.

This Act specified that cemeteries might be consecrated, that two chapels were not required if the site was part-consecrated, and compensatory fees were not due to local clergy in lieu of lost burial fees. The cemeteries served sanitary districts and did not in any way correspond to Ecclesiastical governance.

Under the Public Health (Interments) Act, towns and cities with a council dominated by Nonconformists could take the step of opening an entirely unconsecrated cemetery paid for through the rates. By 1897, over 100 separate districts applied to the Local Government Board for funding to take advantage of the Act.

The Act was remarkably controversial, so much so that a Select Committee inquiry into the Act was held in 1897-8. The inquiry report contains a very helpful explanation of how the Act operated. Witnesses describe the ways in which communities clashed over how new cemeteries should be provided.

The Burial Acts did not in any way ‘settle’ the issue of burial. The second half of the nineteenth century is characterised by substantial local tension on the issue. In the final decades of the 19th century, some local by-elections were fought by candidates declaring themselves ‘pro’ or ‘anti’ consecration.

Additional reading

The Select Committee inquiry report was published in two sections:

1897 (312) Report from the Select Committee on burial grounds; together with the proceedings of the committee, minutes of evidence and appendix.

1898 (322) Report from the Select Committee on burial grounds; together with the proceedings of the committee, minutes of evidence and appendix.

An appendix to the Report, which was published in two sections, gives a list of all the towns and cities in England applying for loans under the Act.

 

J. Rugg (2013) Churchyard and Cemetery: Tradition and Modernity in Rural North Yorkshire, Manchester: Manchester University Press.

This text contains a section discussing the Act and its local ramifications.

British History

Search the bibliography for further material on 19th and 20th century cemetery and crematorium history.