There are two chief senses in which the word “private” may be taken. It denotes what belongs to a particular person, family, or institution apart from the general public—thus we say a “private chapel,” a “private drive,” and so on. It also means that which has been set into being by a private individual, and which is, therefore, a private speculation. Into these two classes I can divide the graveyards which are to be dealt with in this chapter.

The Romans preserved the right of erecting tombs in their country residences. Their very stringent laws prevented them from burying the dead inside the cities (except certain classes of privileged persons), but as long as the interment took place outside the walls, it seems, at one time, to have mattered little where a tomb was set up. This practice was put a stop to in the time of Duillius, and sepulchres were no longer allowed in fields and private grounds, as it was found that the custom was tending to diminish the area of land available for cultivation.

I think that such a practice was never general in London or the surrounding district, but there are a few cases in which something of the sort took place. In Wood’s “Ecclesiastical Antiquities” it is stated that there was a cemetery at Somerset House, Strand, for the Catholic members of Queen Henrietta Maria’s household (1626). It is certain that the vaults under the palace chapel were used, as they were closed for interments in 1777 (fourteen burials having taken place in fifty-seven years), and if there was also a cemetery, the use of which was in this way restricted, it may fairly be called private. It is possible however that this may have been a part of the original churchyard of St. Mary le Strand. The site has now disappeared, the present building of Somerset House being far more extended than was the old one.

Another curious private ground, also used by Romanists, was the garden of Hundsdon House, the French Embassy, in Blackfriars. In 1623 the floor of a neighbouring Jesuit chapel gave way, and about 95 persons were killed. Stow says that 20 bodies (of the poorer people) were buried on the spot. Malcolm states that 44 were buried in the courtyard before the Ambassador’s house, and 15 in his garden. Brayley’s version is that some were buried in a burying-place “within the Spanish Ambassador’s house in Holborn,” and that two great pits were dug, one in the forecourt of the French Ambassador’s house, 18 feet by 12 feet, where 44 were interred, the other in the garden behind, 12 feet by 8 feet. Wood gives the number of those buried in these pits as 47. It was, at any rate, a curious and summary way of disposing of the bodies of those who had so suddenly lost their lives.

I only know of one burial-ground in London which is so strictly private as to have only one grave in it. In Retreat Place, Hackney, a quiet corner near the Unitarian Church, there is a row of twelve almshouses, founded by Samuel Robinson in 1812, “for the widows of Dissenting ministers professing Calvinistic doctrines.” In front of this establishment is a neatly-kept grass plot, and in the centre of it is a large altar tomb—not erected for the use of the ministers’ widows, but containing the mortal remains of Samuel Robinson, who died in 1833, and of his own widow who survived him three years. For my own part I should prefer the enclosure without the grave, but perhaps the widows like to be daily reminded of their benefactor.

There are, no doubt, many private gardens and yards in London in which burials have taken place, surreptitiously if not openly. Only recently an undertaker was remanded for having been in the habit of temporarily depositing the bodies of stillborn infants in his own back premises until such time as there should be enough to make it worth while for him to give them a decent burial. But, numerous as these instances may be, it is difficult to get any record of them.

Convent burial-grounds are very private, but of these I have already spoken in Chapter II. In Millbank Penitentiary a space, 432 square yards in extent, was set aside as a graveyard, in which there was ordinarily rather over one burial per month. There is a picture of it in Griffith’s “Memorials of Millbank,” but no description. This particular plot of ground is to be preserved as an open space when the new buildings are erected on the site of the prison; it will probably belong to the London School Board. Newgate burial-ground is still in use. It is a passage in the prison, 10 feet wide and 85 feet long, in which are interred, with a plentiful supply of quicklime, the bodies of those who are executed within the walls. This reminds me of the gallows which stood for so many years at the Tyburn turnpike, the site of which is still marked by a stone in the Bayswater Road, a few yards west of the Marble Arch. Those who were executed here (there were 24 in 1729) were buried on the spot, and this extraordinary burial-ground was situated at the point now occupied by the house at the corner of Edgware Road and Upper Bryanston Street.^[7] Mr. W. J. Loftie entirely discredits this story, and says that one jawbone is all that was ever found to represent human remains on this site. On their way to the gallows the poor criminals received a present of a large bowl of ale, called St. Giles’ bowl, from the lazar hospital of St. Giles, which was situated close to where the church now stands. And thus they were refreshed on their last sad journey.

By the close of the last century the London churchyards, and the additional burial-grounds provided by the parishes, were becoming so overcrowded, that it occurred to some adventurers to start cemeteries as private speculations; and it was greatly owing to their existence and to their abuse that the agitation arose which finally led to the passing of the “Act to amend the Laws concerning the Burial of the Dead in the Metropolis,” under which the metropolitan burial-grounds were closed. The speculation was found to be a successful one, and was imitated in different parts of London, until by the year 1835 there must have been at least fourteen burial-grounds in London carried on by private persons, besides some additional chapels with vaults under them conducted in the same way. A few of these grounds originated in connection with neighbouring places of worship, but were subsequently bought by private persons. In Central London there were (1) Spa Fields, Clerkenwell; (2) Thomas’ burial-ground, Golden Lane; (3) the New City Bunhill Fields, or the City of London burial-ground, Golden Lane. In North London there was (4) the New or Little Bunhill Fields, Church Street, Islington. In East London there were (5) Sheen’s burial-ground, Whitechapel; (6) Victoria Park Cemetery, Bethnal Green; (7) the East London Cemetery or Beaumont’s ground, Mile End; (8) Globe Fields burial-ground, Mile End Old Town; (9) the North-east London Cemetery, or Cambridge Heath burial-ground, or Peel Grove burial-ground, or Keldy’s Ground, Bethnal Green; (10) Gibraltar Walk burial-ground, Bethnal Green; (11) Ebenezer Chapel ground, Ratcliff Highway. And in South London (12) Butler’s burial-ground, Horselydown, or St. John’s; (13) the New Bunhill Fields, or Hoole and Martin’s ground, Deverell Street, New Kent Road; and (14) a ground in Ewer Street, Southwark.

The charges made for interments in these places were generally slightly lower than in the churchyards, in order to attract customers, and those who officiated at the funerals were, in many cases, not ministers of religion at all. In Butler’s burial-ground, for instance, the person who read the burial service (of the Church of England) wore a surplice, but he was merely an employÉ of the undertaker, who also acted as porter. In Hoole and Martin’s ground a Mr. Thomas Jenner was employed to officiate at funerals for £20 a year. He also read the burial service of the Church of England, but he was by trade a shoemaker, or a patten-maker, whose shop was close by. The owners of these private grounds were naturally tempted to crowd them to excess, and it is impossible to think of what took place in some of them without shuddering. No doubt practices as vile, as unwholesome, and as irreverent were carried on in many of the churchyards; but the over-crowding of the private grounds is so associated with the idea of private gloating over private gains that it is more repulsive.

One of the most notoriously offensive spots in London was Enon Chapel, Clement’s Lane. The chapel was built, and the vaults under it were made, as a speculation by a dissenting minister named Howse. The burial-fees were small, and the place was resorted to by the poor, as many as nine or ten burials often taking place on a Sunday afternoon. The space available for coffins was, at the highest computation, 59 feet by 29 feet, with a depth of 6 feet, and no less than 20,000 coffins were deposited there. In order to accomplish this herculean task it was the common practice to burn the older coffins in the minister’s house, under his copper and in his fireplaces. Between the coffins and the floor of the chapel there was nothing but the boards. In time the effluvium in the chapel became intolerable, and no one attended the services, but the vaults were still used for interments, so that “more money was made from the dead than from the living”—a state of affairs which existed in many of the private burial-places of the metropolis. As I shall have to refer again to the condition of these grounds in speaking of the closing of graveyards in London, I will not enlarge upon it any further here, except to quote from the evidence brought before the Select Committee which sat in 1842 to consider the question of Interment in Towns, respecting the Globe Fields burial-ground in Mile End, which is merely one example out of sixty-five examinations.

William Miller, called in and examined.

“1615. Chairman. What is your occupation?—A jobbing, labouring man, when I can get anything to do.”

“1616. Have you been a gravedigger in Globe Fields. Mile End?—Yes.”

“1617. Is that a private burying-ground?—Yes.”

“1618. To whom does it belong?—Mr. Thomas Tagg.”

“1620. Have many pits been dug in it for the depositing of bodies previously interred?—Yes.”

“1621. Where did they come from?—Out of the coffins which were emptied for others to go into the graves.”

“1623. Were the coffins chucked in with them?—No; they were broken up and burnt.”

“1624. Were they bones, or bodies, that were interred?—Yes; the bones and bodies as well.”

“1625. Were they entire, or in a state of decomposition?—Some were dry bones, and some were perfect.”

“1627. What did you do with them?—Chucked them into the pit.”

“1628. What sort of pit?—A deep, square pit, about four feet wide and seven or eight feet deep.”

“1629. How many bodies did you chuck in?—I cannot say, they were so numerous; each pit would hold about a dozen.”

“1630. How many of these pits did you dig?—I suppose I dug a matter of 20 myself.”

“1632. How near to the surface of the earth did these dead bodies or bones come?—Within about two feet.”

“1638. What is the size of this ground?—It is rather better than half an acre.”

“1639. How many bodies are buried in that ground within a year?—I cannot say; I suppose there are 14,000 have been buried in that ground.”

“1640. How long has it been open?—Since the year 1820.”

“1641. Do you recollect any circumstance which occurred there about the month of October, 1839?—Yes.”

“1642. Will you state it to the Committee?—Some boys were at work there; a policeman on the railroad happened to see them in the act of taking some bones out of baskets, and got a policeman in the police force of the metropolis, and sent him in and seized the boys with a bag of nails and plates of the coffins, going away to sell them, and going to sell the bones.”

“1643. To what purpose are the bones applied?—I do not know.”

“1644. What is done with the wood of the coffins?—Burnt for their own private use.”

“1645. By whom?—By the sexton.”

“1648. Mr. Cowper. Is it burnt in the sexton’s house?—Yes.”

“1649. Sir William Clay. What was done with the iron or metal handles of the coffins?—They were burnt on the coffins when I was there, and were thrown out among the ashes about the ground anywhere.”

“1653. Mr. Ainsworth. Who performs the burial service over the dead?—A gentleman of the name of Cauch.”

“1654. Does he reside there?—No, he resides opposite.”

“1655. What is he?—I do not know that he is anything; he has formerly been a shoemaker.”

“1656. Does he put on a gown when he buries the dead?—Yes, a surplice.”

“1657. What service does he read?—The regular Church service.”

“1665. Chairman. Were you in the habit of performing this grave-digging without the use of spirits?—No; we were obliged to be half groggy to do it, and we cheered one another and sung to one another.”

“1666. You found the work so disgusting you were obliged to be half drunk?—Yes.”

And so on. Many of the revelations made to this committee are so revolting that they are best forgotten. It is, perhaps, only fair to say that this particular man’s evidence was contradicted by Mr. Thomas Tagg, the owner of the ground, but it was subsequently corroborated by other and disinterested witnesses.

The fate of these fourteen grounds has been a varied one. Thomas’s has gone, and its site is occupied by a large building, chiefly a shoe factory, on the north side of Playhouse Yard, and immediately to the west of the church known as St. Mary’s Charterhouse. Sheen’s is now the yard of Messrs. Fairclough, carters, off Commercial Road, and there are some stables and sheds in it. It was, some few years back, a cooperage. Peel Grove burial-ground is smaller than it was, and what is left is a builder’s yard about an acre in extent, the remainder of the space having been built upon. The very small ground by Ebenezer Chapel, near St. George’s in the East, is also a timber-yard, the chapel itself having long since fallen into disuse. Over half of the Globe Fields ground the Great Eastern Railway runs; the remainder is a bare yard, with several miserable tombstones in it and quantities of rubbish. It is fast closed behind an iron gate of colossal proportions, and it daily becomes more neglected and untidy. Little Bunhill Fields in Islington is divided into several parts; one division belongs to the General Post Office, and contains parcels-carts, &c., other pieces are let or sold as builders’ yards or are lying vacant. New Bunhill Fields, near New Kent Road, has been through many vicissitudes. It was very much overcrowded with bodies, and in the vault under the chapel burials used to take place “on lease,” i.e. £1 would be paid for a coffin to be deposited for six months, after which time no inquiries were to be made. As soon as the ground was closed for burials it became a timber-yard, and the chapel in it was used as a saw-mill. Now the sawing goes on in an adjoining shed, and the chapel belongs to the Salvation Army, the graveyard being still covered with high stacks of timber. The City of London ground, in Golden Lane, which was only used for about twenty years, is divided. The part situated in the parish of St. Luke’s belongs to Messrs. Sutton & Co., carriers, and is full of carts, the greater part of it being roofed in. The part situated within the city boundary forms the site of the City Mortuary and Coroner’s Court, with a neatly-kept yard between the two buildings. Gibraltar Walk burial-ground, Bethnal Green Road, has only had small slices cut off it and doled out as yards, &c., for the surrounding houses. The main portion is a neglected jungle, forming a sort of private garden to the big house which opens on to it, and in which the owner of the ground lives. In order to see Butler’s burial-ground it is necessary to go down Coxon’s Place, Horselydown, where two yards will be found. One is a small builder’s yard, with “Beware of the Dog” on the gate. Once I doubted the existence of the dog, and pushed open this gate, but he was there in full vigour, and I speedily fled. The adjoining yard, which is much larger, is Messrs. Zurhoost’s cooperage, and is full of barrels. There were vaults used for burials under three or four of the houses. They can still be seen, and are now, apparently, dwelling-places for the living. The graveyard in Ewer Street has disappeared under the London Bridge and Charing Cross Railway.

The East London Cemetery, in Shandy Street, Mile End, is a recreation ground chiefly for children. So is Spa Fields, Clerkenwell, which was one of the most crowded burial-grounds in London, after having been a fashionable tea-garden, and before being used as a volunteer drill-ground. Both these grounds were secured and laid out by the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association, and are maintained by the London County Council. Such is also the history of Victoria Park Cemetery, a space of 11½ acres, and by far the largest of the private venture burial-grounds. In this ground it was stated that, on every Sunday in the year 1856, 130 bodies were interred. After years of negotiation and much difficulty, the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association secured it, and converted it from a dreary waste of crumbling tombstones and sinking graves into a most charming little park for the people of Bethnal Green. It was opened by H.R.H. the Duke of York in July, 1894, and the County Council maintains it, having re-christened it Meath Gardens.

It need hardly be pointed out that in very few of the spaces I have just described are any tombstones to be found. To a casual observer they are utterly unrecognisable as burial-grounds, and it is many years since such relics can have existed in them. When, for instance, a burial-ground becomes a builder’s yard, tombstones are very much in the way, and they are soon converted into paving-stones, Some years ago a few inscriptions were still legible on the stones which paved the passage to Spa Fields from Exmouth Street, but by this time even these must be worn away. But if it is denied by the owners of these yards that they are burial-grounds there is one method of proving it which soon dispels all doubt, and that is by digging down into the soil. It will not be necessary to make any deep excavation before the spade turns up some earth mixed with human remains, which, once seen, are always recognisable.

Archbishop Herring adopted this plan, as he was anxious to know if any burials had taken place in what was always known as the “burying-ground” of Lambeth Palace, on the north side of the chapel, by the site of the smaller cloisters. In fact he had the whole space dug over, but without success, for no signs of human remains were found; and it is probable that the interments which took place within the palace were all under the chapel.