Burning the Body: The Debate on Cremation in Britain, 1874-1902

Abstract

Väitoskirja käsittelee polttohautauksesta Iso-Britanniassa vuosina 1874-1902 käytyä keskustelua, jonka pääfoorumina olivat lääketieteen aikakauslehdet. Vuonna 1874 Henry Thompsonin julkaisemasta artikkelista alkoi keskustelu polttohautauksesta, joka jatkui kiivaana aina vuoteen 1902 saakka, jolloin säädettiin laki polttohautauksen laillisuudesta Iso-Britanniassa. Päätutkimusmetodi on kulttuurihistoriallinen ja pääkysymyksenä on polttohautauksen merkitys ajan kuvalle kuolemasta ja mitä polttohautauksen käyttöönotto kertoo siinä tapahtuneista muutoksista. Tutkimuskirjallisuudessa on usein väitetty, etta ensimmäinen maailmansota aiheutti perustavanlaatuisia muutoksia siihen asti vallinneeseen kuvaan kuolemasta. Yksi työn keskeisistä väitteista on, etta tämä muutos oli jo pitkälti tapahtunut vuoteen 1902 mennessä ja tämä mahdollisti polttohautauksen hyväksymisen lainsäädannön tasolla. Polttohautauksen historiasta nykyajalla ei ole olemassa montaa tutkimusta ja tässä suhteessa väitöskirja avaa ovia tutkimukselle. Polttohautauksen historia kertoo tutkijalle ei pelkästään kuoleman vaan myos monien yhteiskunnallisten ja kulturaalisten käsitteiden ja tapahtumien historiasta ja auttaa ymmärtämään niitä paremmin. Polttohautauksen käyttöönotto Euroopassa ja Pohjois-Amerikassa 1800- ja 1900-lukujen vaihteessa oli keskeisesti sidoksissa yhteiskunnan perustavanlaatuisiin muutoksiin samana aikana, ja sen historian tutkiminen avaa uusia näkökulmia ajan muihin keskusteluihin, kuten kulttuurin ja yhteiskunnan maallistumiseen, lääketieteen nousuun uutena 'uskontona', byrokratian kasvuun ja kaupungistumiseen, vain muutamia mainitakseni. Polttohautaus herätti kiinnostusta koko länsimaisen kulttuurin piirissä samaan aikaan kun siitä keskusteltiin Iso-Britanniassa. Kysymys siitä, mitkä tekijät länsimaiden modernisoitumisprosessissa synnyttivät kiinnostuksen polttohautaukseen maiden ja kansojen rajoista piittaamatta tarvitsee lisää tutkimusta.

The dissertation deals with the debate on cremation in Britain between 1874 and 1902 which started from an article by Henry Thompson published in Contemporary Review in January 1874. The end point, 1902, has been chosen as the year of the Cremation Act of 1902 which made cremation legal and deprived the opponents of their main argument, the unclear legal status of cremation in British society. In his article Henry Thompson recommended cremation as an economical and hygienic option to burial in earth. His article caused heated debate and opposition in contemporary medical journals British Medical Journal and The Lancet, and The Times, which are among the main sources of the work. Cremation was not in use in Victorian England and had not been used since the spread of Christianity in the Middle Ages. The fact that there was no mention in the law about cremation tells us of the status of cremation in Victorian society. Due to this omission cremation was 'legal' but only because it was not specifically prohibited by the law. The question about the legal standing of cremation became one of the main points in the debate. The opponents wanted to have cremation banned and the cremationists tried their best to make it legal through an Act of law. As a result of the 1874 article The Cremation Society was established to promote cremation in Britain. Francis Seymour Haden, who was perceived as the main opponent, established an Earth to Earth Society which promoted burial reform with the main argument that burial in earth was the only natural way to dispose of the dead. The debate on cremation was a successsor to the debate on burial reform which had started in the early nineteenth century as a consequence of the rapid industrialisation and urbanisation in Britain. The fast growing towns and cities could not cope with their increasing numbers of dead who filled the old churchyards. This created problems with public health and hygiene, and abuse of the system by those responsible for burials. The bodies of the dead poor were chopped up in order for more to be fitted into graves, and common graves were filled up to the surface. The legislation was changed after mid-nineteenth century and new cemeteries were established outside towns. Thompson and many other cremationists used the arguments of the burial reformists in their own sermons telling people of the malpractices of the sextons and epidemics as results of the overflowing inner city graveyards. Many of those promoting burial reform along with many cremationists were medical men. Many questions central to the development of medicine such as the rise of laboratory medicine and whether miasmas or germs caused disease were reflected to the cremation debate. These questions divided the medical opinion according to who supported which of the numerous current theories. Cremation and its promoters often subscribed to the worldview according to which the dead body was something which should be disposed of as soon and as hygienically and efficiently as possible. Traditions surrounding death were seen as useless examples of superstition and often even directly harmful to the health of the nation (for example keeping the body at home before the funeral). Although the question of the legality of cremation often appeared as the main one in the cremationist arguments many other questions existed under the surface. At the beginning of the debate in the 1870s and 1880s the problem with religion and the views of the Church concerning the sacredness of the body were central to the debate on cremation. The idea of burning the body was against the common (even if not orthodox) view that the body had to be buried as a whole in order for it to rise to Heaven on the Day of Judgement. Priests were both on the promoting as well as the opposing side of the cremation debate which testifies of the spreading of the scientific worldview towards the end of the nineteenth century in Britain. Cremation was opposed to the Christian traditions surrounding death and the body in which burial in earth had a central role. Cremationists were often representatives of medicine who undermined the religious worldview with the scientific values. In Christianity the body was the image of God and as such sacred whereas medicine viewed it as a machine which did not have any value after it broke down (died). The history of cremation was full of foreign and pagan religions and customs and its spread in Britain was seen as a threat to social order based on Christianity. It has often been claimed in research literature that WWI was a turning point in attitudes to death and the body. One of the main arguments of this dissertation is that this change had largely happened by 1902 and WWI only speeded up the process of change which was already well under way. The fact that cremation was made legal with the Cremation Act of 1902 tells us that the new medical image of death had been accepted at least by those responsible for passing the Act. Christianity and its image of death were not so strong anymore as to influence legislation. More important than the sacredness of the body and its resurrection its fast and hygienic disposal with the help of fire. This was, if not essential, good for the nation. With the Act of 1902 cremation achieved a respectable status in British society and the debate on its possible dangers died down considerably. The Cremation Act was a symbolical victory for the new image of death and the middle-class meritocracy and its world order. Nevertheless cremation remained marginal until the late 1930s among the working classes whom viewed it as one of the middle-class reform movements which were alien to their way of life. Only after WWII the numbers of cremation started to rise, and by 1967 the number of cremations had exceeded those of burials.