Death Care – From Community To Exclusionary

There was a time, before funeral directors, when the deceased were kept at home and mourning was a communal affair. The local midwife, a woman who took care of matters of both birth and death, would visit the home to wash and lay out the body. Every member of the community would come round to say their farewells and pray for the deceased’s spirit.

The purpose of these gatherings was for people to confirm the death for themselves, and to provide comfort to loved ones in communal mourning. Family and friends would sit around the body to ensure the deceased did not ‘wake’, from which we take the name. As mourners arrived from further afield and loved ones congregated, this could turn into a party lasting for several days.

Curtains were closed as a sign of respect and mirrors, often seen as a gateway for spirits, were covered to avoid trapping the soul or bringing about further deaths. Doors and windows were often left open, to allow the spirit to leave with ease. Children were encouraged to touch and kiss the body to avoid becoming haunted.

When it was time for the deceased to leave the home to be buried, the street would be silent, no children would play, the church bells would ring and the mourners would follow the horse and cart carrying the body.

As the population grew and life refocused around cities, these traditions became less practical. The structure of communities became more complex, with family groups becoming more disparate. People often lived in cramped conditions, and the spread of disease was rife. All of these factors made keeping bodies and mourning practices in the home more difficult.

As a result of these social changes, there was a shift away from death being managed communally. Whereas care of the body had always been taken primarily by women within the community, there arose a new business opportunity for men, and funerals became a way, for some, of capitalising on death.

The profession of the undertaker can be traced back to the 1600s, but it was in Victorian times, in industrialised and densely populated cities, when the role became satirised for exploiting mourners. There were newspaper reports of funeral directors over-charging for unnecessary pomp and grandeur, with paid mourners, unknown to the family, leading the procession in black silk sashes and plumes of ostrich feathers. Charles Dickens, whose fictional undertakers such as Mr Sowerberry and Mr Mould clarified his view of the profession, directed in his will that his funeral should be ‘inexpensive, unostentatious’ and without ‘revolting absurdity’.

In his 1843 Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain, social reformer Edwin Chadwick identified that people from lower classes sometimes kept bodies in their living spaces for a long time while they raised funds for the funerals. He suggested that to overcome this unsanitary practice, public mortuaries should be established.

This directive strengthened the move of bodies being taken into professional care and continued the shift away from the community-based management of death.

This final social changes which cemented professional storage of the deceased was in 1948 with the establishment of the NHS, which meant fewer people died at home, and deaths were almost exclusively confirmed in a hospital setting. Understanding of pathogen and disease transmission meant that midwives were no longer allowed to handle bodies. Post-war domestic architecture, with high-rise flats and narrow staircases, made moving coffins in and out of properties impossible in many cases. But also, in the shadow of two world wars, death became something people were happy not to face directly.

Now, Grave Expectations are part of a movement to change this. While we know that modern scientific knowledge and medical post-mortem practices require a standardised handling of the deceased, we believe that the level of disconnect which had arisen between life and death needs challenging. It is our aim to demystify death care, make it transparent and bring it back into the community.

To achieve this, we encourage conversations about death and dying, and will soon be launching local death cafes. We offer a communal space and provide groups and sessions which strengthen community. Our funeral pricings are tailorable to let people create a bespoke package, without unwanted extras, and we help to create an environment for mourning that is personal, meaningful and representative of the life lived. And we offer people access to their person, should they want to spend time with them once they are gone. Although we might draw the line at a 5-day wake.