CREMATION
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received a communication from tlie Home Office, which resulted in a personal interview with the Home Secretary; the issue of which was that if the Society desired to avoid direct hostile action, an assurance must be given that no cremation should be attempted without leave first obtained from the Minister. This of course was given, no further building took place, and the Society’s labours were confined to employing means to diffuse information on the subject. Sir Spencer Wells brought it before the annual meeting of the British Medical Association in 1880, when a petition to the Home Secretary for permission to adopt cremation was largely signed by the leading men in town and country, but without any immediate result. The next important development was an application to the Council in 1882, by Captain Hanham in Dorsetshire, to undertake the cremation of two deceased relatives who had left express instructions to that effect. The Home Secretary was applied to, and refused. The bodies were preserved, and Captain Hanham erected a crematorium on his estate, and the cremation took place there. He himself, dying a year later, was cremated also; in both cases the result was attained under the supervision of Mr J. C. SwinburneHanham, who succeeded Mr Eassie in 1888 as Secretary to the Society. The Government took no notice. But in 1883 a cremation was performed in Wales by a man on the body of his child, and legal proceedings were taken against him. Mr Justice Stephen, in February 1884, delivered his well-known judgment at the Assizes there, declaring cremation to be a legal procedure, provided no nuisance were caused thereby to others. The Council of the Society at once declared themselves absolved from their promise to the Home Office, and publicly offered to perform cremation, laying down strict rules for careful inquiry into the cause of death in every case. They stated that they were fully aware that the chief practical objection to cremation was that it removed traces of poison or violence which might have caused death. Declining to trust the very imperfect statement generally made respecting the cause of death in the ordinary death certificate (unless a coroner’s inquest had been held), they adopted a system of very stringent inquiry, the result of which in each case was to be submitted to the President, to be investigated and approved by him before cremation could take place, with the right to decline or order an inquest if he thought proper; and this course has been followed ever since the first cremation. It was on 26th March 1885 that the first cremation took place, the subject being a lady.1 In 1888 it became necessary, nearly 100 bodies having been by this date cremated, to build a large hall for religious service, as well as waiting-rooms, in connexion with the crematorium. The Dukes of Bedford and Westminster headed the appeal for funds, each with £105. The former especially took great interest in the progress of the Society, and offered to furnish further donations to any extent necessary. During the next two years he generously defrayed costs to the amount of £3500, and built a smaller crematorium adjacent for himself and family. The latter building was first used on 18th January 1891, a few days after the death of His Grace (the ninth duke of Bedford). The number of cremations slowly increased year by year, and the total at the end of 1900 was 1824. Many of these were persons of distinction—by rank, or by attainments in art, literature, and science, or in public life. The Council next turned their attention to the need for a national system of death certification, to be enforced by law as an essential and much needed reform in connexion with cremation. On 6th January 1893 the Duke of 1
Times, 27th March 1885.
Westminster introduced a deputation to the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Mr Asquith, and the President of the Cremation Society opened the case, showing that no less than 7 per cent, of the burials in England took place without any certificate, while in some districts it was far greater. In consequence of this the Home Secretary appointed a Select Committee of the House of Commons, which was presided over by Sir Walter Foster, of the Local Government Board, “ to inquire intothe sufficiency of the existing law as to the disposal of the dead . . . and especially for detecting the causes of death due to poison, violence, and criminal neglect.” After a prolonged inquiry and careful consideration of the evidence, a full report and conclusions drawn therefrom were unanimously agreed to, and published as a blue-book in the autumn of 1893.2 The following conclusions are quoted from this volume :—Page iii. “So far as affording a record of the true cause of death and the detection of it in cases where death may have been due to violence, poison, or where criminal neglect is concerned, the class, of certified deaths leaves much to be desired.” Page iv. Certification is extremely important as a deterrent of crime, and numerous proofs are given at length in support of the statement. . . . “Contrast this class with that of uncertified deaths, when the result is such as to force upon your Committee the conviction that vastly more deaths occur annually from foul play and criminal neglect than the law recognizes.” Page viii. Great uncertainty in resorting to the coroner’s court, and want of system in connexion with the practice of it, are affirmed to exist. Page x. It is stated that the opportunity for perpetrating crime is great in the considerable class of uncertified cases . . . “in short, the existing procedure plays into the hands of the criminal classes.” “Your Committee are much impressed with the serious possibilities implied in a system which permits death and burial to take place without the production of satisfactory medical evidence of the cause of death.” Page xii. “Your Committee have arrived at the conclusion that the appointment of medical officials, who should investigate all cases of death which are not certified by a medical practitioner in attendance, is a proposal which deserves their support.” In considering cremation, the Committee reported as follows :— Page xxii. “Your Committee are of opinion that there is only one question in connexion with this method of disposing of a. dead body to which it is necessary for them to refer. That question is the supposed danger to the community arising from the fact that with the destruction of the body the possibility of obtaining evidence of the cause of death by post-mortem examination also disappears.” The mode of proceeding adopted by the Cremation Society of England having been described, “your Committee are of opinion that with the precautions adopted in connexion with cremation, as carried out by the Cremation Society, there is little probability that cases of crime would escape detection, but inasmuch as these precautions are purely voluntary, your Committee consider that in the interests of public safety such regulations should be enforced by law.” After this, it could only be a question of time before the admitted demands for official inquiry were enforced by law in every case of death; when that is done, the general employment of cremation may safely follow. In August 1894 the President of the Society laid the results of the Select Committee before the British Medical Association at Bristol, and a unanimous vote was obtained in favour of the suggestions made by it. In November a second deputation waited on Mr Asquith, in which the President of the Society begged him to carry out the system recommended. The Home Secretary replied that the business belonged to the Department of the Local Government Board, and that it was already dealing with the question and bringing it to a satisfactory solution. Soon afterwards, however, the Government changed, other questions became pressing, and further consideration of the subject was postponed. It is most desirable to put in force by Act of Parliament the recommendations of the Select Committee before mentioned. The 2 Reports on Death Certification, 1893. Eyre & Spottiswoode, London (373, 472).
