The modern funeral is frozen in time. The garb we associate with funeral directors - top hat and black tail coat - is essentially Victorian dress. But what did funerals look like before that time? And indeed who organised them in the days before undertakers as a one-stop funeral services provider, which also only emerged in Victorian times existed?
In this talk historian Dan O’Brien steps back a century and looks
at the funerals of Georgian London from Westminster to Wapping,
drawing upon a diverse range of sources produced by the funeral
furnishers trade and its customers. These funerals are a
fascinating window on attitudes to death in a changing city.
Familiar funerary items made their appearance alongside more
unusual features – mourners mixed with mutes, and flambeaux lit the
way for feathermen, who led the funeral carrying black ostrich
feathers.
By day and night, funerals brought the living closer to the dead,
but this was often a complicated process as mournful processions
navigated busy and sometimes indifferent streets. We will hear
contemporary accounts from both funeral goers and spectators on the
experience of a Georgian funeral and how it served as a display of
the status of the deceased.
Dr. Daniel O'Brien
Dr. Daniel O’Brien is a Visiting Research Fellow at the
Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath. His research
examines the undertaking trade and its products in
eighteenth-century England, focusing on prosperous settlements like
Bath, Bristol, and Salisbury. He explores societal perceptions of
undertakers and their goods by analyzing funeral representations in
popular culture. Using diverse sources, he addresses often
overlooked questions about how knowledge of the early trade was
formed.
| Ticket | Event time | Cost |
|---|---|---|
|
IN AT THE DEATH
Undertakers and the funerals of Georgian London |
15:30 - 16:55 | £12.00 |
Address
Guys Hospital Chapel, Entrance via the Courtyard, St. Thomas Street, London, SE1 9GU
Nearest Station
London Bridge (Tube)
Getting there
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