Necropolis: London & it's Dead (27 page)

Funeral coaches followed the hearse. In more prosperous families, it was common to send a funeral coach as a mark of respect. The number of coaches attending was indicative of the family’s status. The black funeral horses, snorting and stamping, with the ‘sable plumes of death’ nodding as they tossed their heads, form one of the most iconic images of the Victorian funeral. Whatever the social status of the deceased, plumes were
de rigueur
. Even a £4.14s funeral ensured you fifteen black ostrich feathers.

The majority of horses used in ‘the black job’ or ‘black coach’ business were controlled by four proprietors, who were responsible for all the funeral vehicles in the city and could only be approached by undertakers. They provided hearses, mourning coaches, horses and drivers; no coach could be rented without a driver. The horses themselves, strong, handsome, blue-black animals, worth £50 each, were imported from Holland and Belgium. Traditionally, only ‘entire’ horses were used for funerals, never mares or geldings. Constantly in the public eye, they were always well groomed. A patch of grey would be painted out, a thinning mane or tail supplemented with hair from a deceased comrade. Mostly gentle and docile, they were sturdy animals; dragging heavy coaches for long distances, they had to be.
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Unlike hearses, which were specifically manufactured, mourning coaches were not built for funerals. Usually, these were old, previously fashionable chariots, once the pride of the West End, which were bought up, lacquered black, re-upholstered with black inside, and used for many years in their new incarnation, hired out at £35 a time.

In an attempt to solve the transport problem, Shillibeer introduced his Patent Funeral Omnibus in 1842. A combination of hearse and mourning coach, it seated up to six passengers. In a typically Victorian feat of engineering, the section containing the coffin could be packed away for the return journey. John Claudius Loudon was hugely impressed, regarding the invention as ‘ingenious and most useful’, but the omnibus failed to find popularity with
the public. More significantly, it was not taken up by the trade, as undertakers wished to encourage mourners to hire as many coaches as possible.
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The act of attending a funeral was regarded as therapeutic, resulting in high moral uplift. William Justyne remarked of Highgate Cemetery that:

The earthy smell, the sunless air, the sensation of the world shut out must indicate that this is a half-way house to the grave–a brief resting-place for death and sorrow. Could the visitor stand here, day after day, and watch coffin succeeding coffin and the black-robed mourners–could he hear the holy and breathless words of the burial service repeated and repeated before an ever-changing company of pale faces and troubled hearts, he would learn a grim, never to be forgotten lesson of the shadow side of human life.

The hardest of men are humbled–the stoutest hearts will break here. The vanity of human life, the selfish and self-confident pursuit of worldly pleasure are here set aside, for a while at least; as the awful prospect of eternity is brought to us by a force of circumstance.
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While sentiment and uplift were regarded as an important outcome, funerals had their more vulgar side. Many found that the most effective way to staunch a flow of grief after the ceremony was a game of skittles at the nearest pub, accompanied by copious quantities of beer. James Greenwood was astonished to discover fifteen empty hearses and black coaches drawn up outside a pub near a great London cemetery. The big black horses required refreshment after a busy day, and so did the drivers and attendants. Undertakers lounged against the black wheels, with glasses of beer or gin in their hands and pipes in their mouths, laughing and joking as if they were on a day out in Epping Forest. Some even had white ribbons pinned to their hats, denoting the funeral of a baby or child.

The mourners, far from being outraged, plucking the pipes from their mouths, or spilling their drinks in the gutter, were doing exactly the same thing: drinking, smoking, even eating. The more decorous remained in their carriages, partaking of biscuits and ale, brandy and water, plates of cold beef and pickles, while the undertaker, with one black kid glove off and his weeper [black ribbon] askew bent in at the window and took their orders.

Inside, the pub was heaving, the bar four deep with men in black crape. Recently bereaved women, old and young, jostled in the narrow space, clamouring for their round of drinks and packs of tobacco. Forget the black crape and the widows’ bonnets, said Greenwood, and it could be any Saturday night in Whitechapel. One costermonger was even challenging the slim young barman about the outrageous price of a pint. The more genteel mourners had taken refuge in the tea-garden. The majority of these were women, knocking back gin, some tearful, some defiant, preyed on by the undertakers, their fishy eyes blinking and noses glowing as the black hats slid off their heads.

These extraordinary scenes were a regular occurrence. After a funeral, the undertakers would pull up outside a quiet country pub, declaring that the horses needed watering, and respectfully suggesting that the mourners would care to stretch their legs. Few could resist, and so the undertakers got their skinful, and more, from a delighted landlord who was grateful for the business.
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Elaborate funerals were part of the rich panoply of nineteenth-century life. Horatio Nelson set the standard after he was mortally wounded by a sniper at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Nelson’s body was pickled in brandy, which was replaced with wine at Gibraltar, and brought back to England, amid macabre speculation that the Admiral’s crew had drunk the embalming brandy in transit. Resting in a coffin made from the mainmast of the French flagship,
L’Orient
, Nelson’s body lay in state in the Painted Hall at Greenwich for three
days, before making the journey by barge to Whitehall, and thence to the Admiralty. Hundreds of thousands brought London to a standstill as they watched the body hauled through the streets to St Paul’s in a magnificent funeral ‘car’, a copy of his ship, the
Victory
, complete with figurehead and a canopy topped with black plumes bearing the motto:
Hoste Devicto Requievit
–With the enemy conquered, he is at rest–and a pall which read simply:
TRAFALGAR
.

‘When the coffin was brought of the admiralty, there seemed to be a general silence and every one appeared to feel for the death of so noble and such a good man,’ wrote Nelson’s nephew. Night had fallen by the time Nelson’s coffin was lowered into the crypt. His crew, who had accompanied him on his final journey, ripped up the ensign covering the coffin and stuffed the fragments into their pockets.

Not to be outdone, Wellington’s funeral, organized by Prince Albert in 1852, was a
pièce de résistance
fitting for a national hero.

When Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769-1852), died on 14 September 1852, Queen Victoria declared him ‘the greatest man this country has ever produced’ and felt his loss as keenly as if it had been a death in the family. The Court went into mourning. Wellington, a Spartan type who favoured an iron bed and a hard pillow, had left no particular instructions, but the Government, led by the inexperienced Lord Derby (his first Tory cabinet were so young they were referred to as the Who?
Who?
Cabinet) considered that this was an opportunity for a spectacular state funeral for the war hero and former Tory Prime Minister. This would unite the people in mourning.

Immediately after his death, the Duke’s coffin of oak, encased in lead went on display in a black-clad room at Walmer Castle. In the evening, it made the two-mile journey to Deal Station, where it was lifted onto a train, bound for London, and taken to Chelsea Hospital. Here it lay in state for three days, guarded by soldiers from the Duke’s old regiment, in a hall hung with billowing black velvet decorated with silver cord and lit by dozens of tall candle
sticks. A constant stream of mourners passed by the coffin. The first of these was Queen Victoria herself, accompanied by her children. Overcome with grief, ‘she never got beyond the centre of the hall, where her feelings quite overcame her, and she was led, weeping bitterly, back to the carriage.’
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On 12 November, a two-mile tailback of carriages blocked the streets, and thousands of ticket-holders had to be turned away from the Private View when it closed at four. The following day, when the public were given admittance, the police were overwhelmed by the sheer weight of numbers, and two women were crushed to death.

Wellington’s body was transferred to St James’s Park, where it spent the night beneath a tent. The morning of the funeral was stormy and wild. Before daybreak, troops were assembled in St James’s and Horse Guards Parade, their guns trimmed with black crape. At seven o’clock, a salute rang out–and then, with tremendous military ceremony, arms reversed and drums muffled, the enormous structure on which the body was carried rumbled through the streets to the sound of the ‘Dead March from Saul’ as the Duke began his final journey, to St Paul’s Cathedral.

Wellington’s coffin reposed in a magnificent ‘funeral car’, created by Richard Redgrave (1804–89) and Sir Charles Cockerell (1788–1863), designer of the Bank of England, and approved by Prince Albert. Twenty-seven feet long, ten feet broad, seventeen feet high, and weighing twelve tons, it was drawn by twelve black horses harnessed three abreast, embellished with nodding plumes of black ostrich feathers. Large bodies of troops representing every regiment in the British Army lined the route or followed in the procession.

According to
The Times
, the funeral car ‘formed by far the most magnificent and interesting part of the procession. The whole lower part is of bronze. Above this rises a rich pediment of gilding, with a list of victories inscribed. On the sides, lofty coats of arms are surmounted by Ducal coronets and batons, topped by a velvet pall, embroidered with laurels in silver and the legend “Blessed are the Dead that die in the Lord”’.

Wellington’s ‘funeral car’ was a good example of the transitional stage between the rudimentary horse drawn wagon of previous generations and the elaborate nineteenth-century hearse, designed to showcase the handiwork of the undertaker.

The streets of London presented a remarkable sight. A national day of mourning had been declared, and the Bank of England, Stock Exchange and Parliament suspended. Mourners had streamed into the capital from all over the country. In keeping with the Duke’s Irish connections, special boats were laid on from Dublin. The newspapers were full of tickets for the big day (with the
Observer
estimating total sales of £80,000) and offers of accommodation. More than 200,000 seats were sold and 1,500,000 people were expected. Enormous crowds assembled hours before the ceremony, and every possible vantage point occupied, including the trees. The black-draped balconies of gentlemen’s clubs such as the Athenaeum club and the Carlton were crammed with ladies, the traditional ‘men only’ policy having been abandoned for the day. People crowded onto the roof of the National Gallery; although the shops were officially shut, spectators who had paid for a place inside them squashed against the windows of the Strand. Everyone was dressed in deep mourning. Whatever the popular feeling towards Wellington during some periods of his life, there appeared to be heartfelt sorrow at his death. The crowd was mostly decorous, although one group, who had gathered to follow the procession near St Clement Dane’s, were beaten back by police truncheons.

Although St Paul’s had opened at eight in the morning, it was past noon by the time the cortège arrived at the Cathedral. It was a freezing cold day, with the wind whipping in through the open doors. The clergy tried to shelter their faces with their robes and the breeze rippled the feathers of the Duke’s hat where it lay on his coffin, as if it were coming to life.

St Paul’s had been closed for six weeks beforehand, while preparations were made for the expected 13,000 mourners. Banting’s had draped heavy black cloth over the windows and the monuments,
including that of Nelson. Light came from 7,000 gaslamps, hung under the Whispering Gallery. The service, featuring a choir 120 strong, lasted three hours. At three o’clock, bells tolled throughout the land and the Duke was lowered into his tomb. At this point, reality intervened. One mourner paused to glance into the burial chamber and turned away, retching. It was to be five years before Wellington’s sarcophagus of Cornish porphyry was completed.

There are those who prefer to be different in every area of life, and death is no exception. In the eighteenth and nineteenth century, a small number of people chose not to be buried at all. The most famous case was that of Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), the philosopher and jurist. Bentham left instructions in his Will that his body, dressed in his own clothes, be preserved and displayed at University College, London, as an ‘auto icon’, so that he could keep a watchful eye on proceedings at his own college. For years before his death, Bentham even carried around the glass eyes needed for the taxidermy process. In the event, his head deteriorated before it could be preserved and a wax one had to be substituted. The genuine head, so often a target for student pranks, eventually had to be locked away, after being found doing service in a football game, and, on another occasion, discovered in a locker at Aberdeen railway station.

While Mrs Holmes makes a tantalizing reference to a gentleman who left instructions that his body should be exhibited in a glass coffin on the roof of his Hyde Park mansion
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, one Martin Van Butchell (1735–1814), a dentist, kept the embalmed body of his first wife in a glass case in his drawing room.

Van Butchell, whose success as a surgeon was somewhat eclipsed by his unbridled eccentricity–he often rode through London on a white pony decorated with purple spots–had Maria Van Butchell’s body embalmed by the pioneering anatomist Dr William Hunter when she died aged thirty-six. Hunter injected the vascular system with Oil of Turpentine and Camphorated Spirit of Wine, and
introduced powdered nitre and camphor into the abdominal cavity. According to Dr Julian Litten, the entire procedure was documented by her widower, who then released a press statement announcing limited viewing of the results: ‘VAN BUTCHELL (not willing to be unpleasantly circumstanced, and wishing to convince some good Minds they have been misinformed) acquaints the Curious, no Stranger can see his embalmed Wife, unless (by a Friend personally) introduced to himself, any Day, between Nine and One,
Sundays
excepted.’
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