Death, Grief and Poverty in Britain, 1870-1914

Julie-Marie Strange0521838576, 9780521838573, 9780511126154

It has been assumed that the poor in Victorian and Edwardian Britain did not mourn their dead because of high mortality rates. Contesting this approach, Julie-Marie Strange studies the expression of grief among the working class, demonstrating that poverty increased–rather than deadened–it. She illustrates the mourning practices of the working classes through chapters addressing care of the corpse, the funeral, the cemetery, commemoration, and high infant mortality rates. The book draws upon fiction, journalism, and official reports as well as personal testimony.

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Table of contents :
Cover……Page 1
Half-title……Page 3
Series-title……Page 4
Title……Page 5
Copyright……Page 6
Dedication……Page 7
Contents……Page 9
Acknowledgements……Page 10
Abbreviations……Page 12
1 Introduction: revisiting the Victorian and Edwardian celebration of death……Page 13
2 Life, sickness and death……Page 39
Familiarity with death……Page 41
Caring for the sick: formal medical aid……Page 47
Caring for the sick at home……Page 56
Prolonged deaths and proto-corpses……Page 60
Sudden death and the family……Page 69
Neglect……Page 73
Conclusion……Page 77
3 Caring for the corpse……Page 78
Proximity to the corpse……Page 79
Laying out the dead……Page 83
Viewing the body……Page 92
The wake……Page 99
Post-mortem……Page 103
Conclusion……Page 109
4 The funeral……Page 110
The burial service……Page 112
Expense……Page 120
Mourning……Page 129
Conclusion……Page 142
5 Only a pauper whom nobody owns: reassessing the pauper burial……Page 143
Pauper and public burials……Page 145
The stigma of pauperism……Page 147
Claiming the dead……Page 150
The public grave……Page 156
The pauper funeral……Page 160
Contesting respectability……Page 166
Conclusion……Page 171
6 Remembering the dead: the cemetery as a landscape for grief……Page 175
God’s acre: affiliation and identity……Page 176
Public space, private loss……Page 184
The neglected grave……Page 190
Decent burial and the grave as private property……Page 199
Conclusion……Page 204
7 Loss, memory and the management of feeling……Page 206
Poverty, grief and the family unit……Page 207
Poverty and grief: the complexity of feeling……Page 215
Expressions of loss……Page 220
Memory and commemoration……Page 225
Talking to the dead……Page 230
Extreme responses to bereavement……Page 233
Conclusion……Page 240
8 Grieving for dead children……Page 242
Poverty, insurance and ignorance……Page 245
Burial costs……Page 250
Love, ignorance and childcare……Page 257
Birth, death and bonds of affection……Page 262
Conclusion……Page 273
9 Epilogue: death, grief and the Great War……Page 275
LANCASHIRE RECORD OFFICE……Page 286
WIGAN RECORD OFFICE……Page 287
SECONDARY SOURCES……Page 288
Index……Page 302