10
Commemoration and Memory
London has long been the centre of national commemoration. Public monuments, state funerals, plaques, statues and locations dedicated to the deceased have been the means through which this commemoration has taken place. While the famous, as would be expected, have had a greater visibility in commemoration there are considerable numbers of plaques and even some statues to the lesser known. This chapter will be organised around two particular themes: state and other ‘notable’ funerals and public monuments. However it will start with the history of the obituary, a familiar but rather neglected aspect of commemoration.
The obituary has a long history. The origins of the obituary are somewhat obscure but it has been traced back in newspapers and journals in the English-language press to 1625. The lawyer Richard Smyth recorded a selection of deaths in London between 1627 and 1674 which included the plague year of 1666. Among the obituaries is one of the sexton of Cripplegate parish but most of the deaths recorded are those of the social elite, including the Earl of Bedford (1641), Henry, Duke of Gloucester (1660) and Mary, Princess of Orange (1660). He also noted a number of suicides such as that of Mr Ravenscroft, a cheesemonger, who threw himself into a pond near Islington in 1649.
The obituary developed during the eighteenth century and became more detailed and at times even displayed a literary flourish in the nineteenth century. Many institutions recorded obituaries of their members. The Royal Society first published obituaries of its Fellows in 1830, in Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Prior to this, obituaries were read at the Anniversary meeting, often by the President himself, and were printed in the record of that meeting. John Thadeus Delane was the first editor of the Times (editor 1841–1877) who took an interest in the obituary, recognising that the death of certain people warranted more than just a brief notice. In the twentieth century with the help of a number of reforming newspaper editors, the obituary became not just a brief biography of the deceased but also an art form in its own right. Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) made the comment, ‘I wake up every morning at nine and grab for the morning paper. Then I look at the obituary page. If my name is not on it, I get up.’
Notable Funerals
Large-scale funerals through London have provided one of the most visible displays of the ceremony and theatre of death and this has been evident by the huge crowds that have turned out to watch many of them. State ceremonies from the earliest period to the present served not only as displays of political power but also as tests of loyalty to the monarch and state. However it was not only heads of state and monarchs that guaranteed large crowds. People turned out to pay respect to those that were deemed to be popular heroes or personalities, sometimes in contradiction to the attitude of the authorities. There have been so many state and other notable funerals and interments in London that it is impossible to do justice to a fraction of them here. Those chosen were unusually large, had various unusual features or evoked unexpected responses in those who viewed them.
The first King to be buried in London after the Norman Conquest was Henry III (1216–72) who was placed in the splendid tomb at Westminster Abbey erected by his son Edward I. Despite a magnificent funeral he was temporarily buried in the old grave of Edward the Confessor (1003–66) to whom he was particularly devoted. Nineteen years later he was moved to his own tomb. The last monarch to be buried in London was George II (1727–60) whose service was described as a ‘disorderly and poorly attended affair’. All subsequent monarchs have been buried at Windsor.
Funerals for monarchs have tended to be elaborate and costly affairs. Henry V (1387–1422) had a great funeral procession from Dover to St Paul’s Cathedral. Four horses drew the chariot into the nave as far as the choir screen. In recognition of his role as a great warrior King the inscription on the ledge of the tomb platform translates as, ‘Henry V, hammer of the Gauls, lies here’. When the tomb of Edward I (1239–1307) was opened in 1774 his body was found nearly intact, wrapped in a waxed linen cloth and wearing royal robes of red and gold with a crimson mantle. He had a gilt crown on his head and carried a sceptre surmounted by a dove and oak leaves in enamels.
The Tudors spared no expense on ceremony. Henry VIII’s funeral was magnificent. His huge coffin was covered with palls of blue velvet and a cloth of gold. On top of the coffin was a wax effigy robed in crimson velvet and a crown full of precious stones. The effigy was clad in jewelled bracelets and gloves adorned with rings. The funeral of Elizabeth I, who died on 24 March 1603, was described by the chronicler John Stow: ‘there was such a generall sighing and groning, and weeping, and the like hath not beene seene or knowne in the memorie of man.’ A total of £11,305 was spent on this event. The funeral of her successor, James I (1566–1625), cost almost five times more with a funeral address which lasted two hours. This stands in stark contrast to his son Charles I (1600–49) who was quickly whisked away after his execution to be buried at Windsor rather than Westminster Abbey.
Although Queen Mary II’s funeral in 1695, at a cost of £50,000, was an expansive and grand affair with a lavish procession to Westminster Abbey, royal funerals from the Restoration and throughout the eighteenth century were generally less grand. Factors contributing to this included a decline in the power and significance of the monarch, growing political stability and changes in the organisation and administration of state funerals. After the funeral of George II all subsequent burials took place at Windsor, which lessened the opportunity for public participation. A break with tradition came in 1843 when Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex (1773–1843), the sixth son of George III and favourite uncle of Queen Victoria, requested to be buried at Kensal Green cemetery. Charles II (1630–85) was buried at Westminster Abbey but contemporaries criticised the funeral ceremonies as mean and scanty. Charles had died as a Catholic and this was widely resented at the time.
The account of George II’s funeral on 13 November 1760 by Horace Walpole (1717–97) described the procession with its line ‘of footguards, every seventh man bearing a torch, the horse-guards lining the outside, their officers with drawn sabres and crape sashes, on horseback, the drums muffled, the fifes, bells tolling and minute guns, all this was very solemn’. Walpole also gave a vivid portrait of those in mourning:
The real serious part was the figure of the Duke of Cumberland … attending the funeral of a father, how little reason soever he had to love him, could not be pleasant. His leg extremely bad, yet forced to stand upon it near two hours, his face bloated and distorted with his late paralytic stroke … This grave scene was fully contrasted by the burlesque Duke of Newcastle – he fell into a fit of crying the moment he came into the chapel and flung himself back in a stall, the Archbishop hovering over him with a smelling bottle – but in two minutes his curiosity got the better of his hypocrisy and he ran about the chapel with his glass to spy who was or was not there, spying with one hand and mopping his eyes with the other.
Even this did not descend into the sort of farce that was displayed in some of the early nineteenth-century royal ceremonies. Despite the outpouring of genuine sympathy at the death of Princess Charlotte, daughter of the Prince Regent in 1817, undertakers were drunk at the funeral. Worse was that of George IV’s funeral. So disgusted with the chattering and laughing during the service was The Times that it thundered that it had never seen ‘so motley, so rude, so ill managed a body of persons’. However it did not particularly rue the passing of George, when it commented in July 1830 that ‘there never was an individual less lamented by his fellow creatures than this deceased King.’
Responses to funerals often depended on how well-liked the person had been during his or her life. The funerals of Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and George III appear to have indicated that they were genuinely popular. Royal funerals, from the seventeenth century until the early nineteenth century, generally took place at night which considerably enhanced the drama of the occasion. The most popular royal funerals in this period, in the sense
that they evoked a genuine outpouring of grief as opposed to one of appropriate solemnity, were those of Mary II in 1694 after her unexpected death at the age of thirty, Princess Charlotte who died in childbirth in 1817 and Queen Caroline, George IV’s estranged wife. Prince Albert’s funeral in 1861, although a private affair, inspired a substantial collective sense of grief.
However large-scale funerals were not just the preserve of monarchs. Those of Nelson and Wellington in the nineteenth century far surpassed any royal funeral ceremony. Crowds also responded to funerals that were not always sanctioned and organised by the state. Funerals of popular figures could take on the sense of majesty reserved for heads of state. Similarly the crowd were quick to express their hostility towards those who were rich and powerful but also unpopular.
George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham (1592–1628), was, next to King James I, the most powerful and one of the richest men in the country. He was adviser and favourite to the King and reputedly his lover. Buckingham was also widely and deeply despised and hated. When John Felton assassinated him in Portsmouth there was almost national rejoicing. Arrangements were made to conduct Buckingham’s funeral at night to avoid any potential hostility. At his funeral at Westminster Abbey on 23 August 1628, soldiers had to form an armed guard to protect the coffin from the jubilant crowds who had turned out in their thousands to cheer his funeral procession. The drums were beaten particularly loudly in order to drown out the cheers and jeers of the crowd. His assassin, Felton, who was executed at Tyburn, became a national hero and gained great sympathy. Despite his infamous reputation London still bears Buckingham’s name in some of the streets near Charing Cross such as Buckingham Street, George Court, Duke Street, and Villiers Street.
During the first Civil War (1642–6) state funerals were conducted in Westminster Abbey to notable Parliamentarians such as John Pym (1643), Robert Devereux, the third Earl of Essex (1646) and Oliver Cromwell (1658). Pym was given a state funeral but after the Restoration in 1660 his body was exhumed and reburied in a communal grave with other leading Parliamentarians in St Margaret’s churchyard, Westminster. Essex was buried with great pomp but within a month of the funeral his grave was vandalised. Cromwell was given all the ceremony befitting a head of state but his body was dug up in January 1661 and ritually decapitated at Tyburn.
Despite these grand organised political ceremonies the people were quick to show their respects to those who had been condemned by the authorities. This was particularly the case with the Leveller Robert Lockyer. The Levellers were radicals mainly within the Parliamentary army who campaigned for an extension of the vote and religious toleration. Lockyer had been executed in St Paul’s churchyard in 1649 for demanding higher pay for his men, an action that was deemed to be mutinous. Thousands turned out for his funeral. In defiance of the authorities the horse and hearse were draped in black, an honour reserved for officers, and more than 4,000 supporters followed the cortege from Smithfield, many wearing the black and green colours of the Levellers. Wisely the State did not intervene, particularly given the presence of hundreds of partisan soldiers at the funeral.
A deeply-hated figure was thief-taker Jonathan Wild (1683–1725). Not only was he jeered and pelted along the whole route from Newgate to Tyburn but he was buried late at night in secret. However it was not a well kept secret because his grave was opened within a few days and his body was taken away. The Daily Journal reported on the discovery of the ‘remains of [a] dissected body’ in St Margaret’s Parish. Even stranger was the donation of a skeleton, reputedly that of Wild, in 1847 to the Royal College of Surgeons by a Dr Frederick Fowler. Whether it was Wild or not, the skeleton can still be seen in the College in the Hunterian Collection in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
The responses to Wild’s death stood in stark contrast to those at the death of popular London hero, thief and multiple escapologist Jack Sheppard (1702–24). Thousands of people thronged the near three-mile route between Newgate Prison and the Tyburn gallows to see him as he proceeded to his execution. When he was executed, the crowd, fearing that the hearse was going to take his body to the anatomists, flung stones and anything they could get their hands on at the driver. Poor Jack’s body was torn and dragged by those trying to protect it. He was eventually buried in the churchyard of St Martin-in-the-Fields but only after further riots. Sheppard’s reputation was sustained through innumerable broadsheets and ballads and effectively established him in the folklore of celebrated Londoners.
Many occupations, trades and organisations in London have provided their own rituals and regalia for their deceased members. The Livery Companies of the City of London are a notable example of this. There are 107 livery companies today. Their origins go back many centuries with about two-thirds of them pre-dating 1600. They developed as fraternities and guilds (or mysteries) that flourished throughout Europe for many centuries and were responsible for the regulation of their trades. Funerals were particularly important occasions for the companies and were generally attended by all their members. The coffin of the deceased member would be covered by a sumptuous pall or ‘herse-cloth’ and the company arms. City companies had their own herse-cloths, some of which still survive such as those of the Fishmongers, Saddlers, Pewterers, Brewers, Girdlers and Merchant Taylors. Robert Garslang, a grocer of London, in 1460 ordered a new marble stone to be placed over his body with the name and arms of his company ‘to have me in special memory’. William Turke, a fishmonger, asked that a stone be provided ‘remembering my name and the names of my sad wife and daughter Joan, to have out souls prayed for’. In addition to having their own rituals, the City Livery Companies also provided resources for state funerals. At Nelson’s funeral eleven of the barges were owned by the Livery Companies bearing their own individual colourful banners.
The nineteenth century witnessed a series of grand funerals such as those of Lord Nelson (1806), Princess Charlotte (1817), the Duke of Wellington (1852), the Prince Consort (1861) and Queen Victoria (1901). They were further commemorated by services in churches throughout Britain. These deaths stimulated an awareness of national community and a sense of shared grief. They also shared – in their scale, commemoration and popular response – continuity with twentieth-century funerals such as those of Winston Churchill and Princess Diana.
Following Lord Nelson’s death on his flagship HMS Victory on 21 October 1805 at the Battle of Trafalgar, he was taken back to England for one of the most colourful funerals ever provided for a commoner. His coffin was carried from Greenwich to Whitehall Stairs ‘in one of the greatest Aquatic Processions that ever was beheld on the River Thames’. So huge were the crowds that turned out to mourn him that the front of the procession had reached St Paul’s Cathedral before the end of the procession had left the Admiralty. The organisation had been fraught with tension about who should take part. It was only pressure from the press that forced the organisers to allow the sailors of the HMS Victory to attend while the two loves of his life, Emma Hamilton and Horatia, his daughter, were barred.
For three days from 4 January 1806 Nelson’s body lay in state in Greenwich Hospital’s Painted Hall. It is estimated that nearly 100,000 people visited the Hall to pay their last respects. The coffin, which was surrounded with trophies including captured French and Spanish flags, was transported by the King’s Barge up the Thames to Whitehall Steps on 8 January, followed by a two-mile procession of boats, and from there taken to the Admiralty in Whitehall. The following day his funeral took place with thousands of people lining the streets on the bright January day. The Times of 10 January 1806 gave details of the procession which ‘at half-past ten [in the morning] … commenced from the Admiralty’. It included royalty, nobles, ministers, high-ranking military officers and at least 10,000 soldiers. The service, which commenced at 1 p.m., ended at 6 p.m. when Nelson’s gold-encrusted coffin was lowered into an ornate tomb in the crypt beneath the dome of St Paul’s. It had been one of the most spectacular and lavish funerals London had ever seen.
Nelson’s funeral was a hard act to follow. However on the 18 November 1852 such a funeral took place which the Illustrated London News of 20 November 1852 wrote ‘surpassed in significant grandeur any similar tribute to greatness ever offered in the world’. The funeral was that of the illustrious soldier and statesman, Arthur Wellesley, the 1st Duke of Wellington (1769–1852). Twice Tory Prime Minister from January 1828 to November 1830 and again from 17 November to 9 December 1834, his funeral was attended by more than 1 million people, many of whom had arrived in London on the railways and had spent the previous night sleeping in the streets in order that they could witness the event. The burial took place in St Paul’s Cathedral which was illuminated with 6,000 new gas lights. It was the first large-scale service of its kind to take place under the Dome of the Cathedral.
Preparations had meant that St Paul’s was closed for nearly six weeks whilst extra seating could be installed to accommodate the 13,000 guests attending. The start of the burial service was delayed by almost an hour on account of the late arrival of the coffin. Certainly the pomp and ceremony was exceptional. The Illustrated London News eulogised on ‘the greatest hero of our age’ adding that the popular respect was one of ‘solemnity and a grandeur never before seen in our time and in all probability, not to be surpassed in the obsequies of any other hero heretofore to be born’. The poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, reflecting on the nation’s response, wrote ‘Multitude, Hold your breath in reverent mood’ whilst the poet laureate, Alfred Tennyson (1809–92), in his ‘Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington’ opened with:
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