Cremation Vs. Burial

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Julian Litten, author of ‘The English Way of Death’, is a funeral historian. Here, he explains why, for him, burial is infinitely preferable to cremation.

When the Cremation Bill was being considered in 1888, Punch issued a cartoon:

Wife, entering elegant drawing room: “Poor Mama is terribly low-spirited this morning. Only think – she has just expressed a desire to be cremated.”
Husband (with alacrity): “O’ bless my . . .” (Throwing down his newspaper). “Tell her to put her things on, dear. I’ll . . . I’ll drive her over at once!”

The two most popular choices of disposal of today’s dead are cremation and burial. That’s in order of popularity. There are, of course, other means of corporeal deposit – brick grave, catacomb, mausolea and vault – but these apply to less than 0.01% of disposals.

As we become a more secular society, the crematorium has taken the place of the church for the service. For those who remain closely associated with the Church- either as a communicant or a supportive member of the parish - the funeral is held at the parish church with only the committal taking place at the crematorium.

Whilst burial is a genteel affair, with the coffin being lowered into the earth, there are elements of the cremation process that can appear somewhat alarming. Most questionable of all is why an individual is willing to pay a local authority – for most crematoria are owned and managed by local authorities – to utterly destroy by fire, within a few days of death, the remains of the partner with whom they have spent the majority of their life. Why the haste? Why the need for such destruction?

Some say that the cremation process is “clean”, that it leaves the land for the living, or that they don’t like the idea of the body rotting in the ground. Unfortunately, it is far from clean. If you ever have the opportunity, do go and visit your local crematorium on its annual Open Day. Ask them about the process, and why there are so many filters fitted to the retort through which the smoke has to pass. The truth is that the filters are there to arrest a variety of toxic substances which, because of EEC regulations, are not allowed to pollute the atmosphere.

On the other hand, some are particularly anxious to have their remains subjected to the process. As a result of the Burial Act 1857, intramural burial is no longer allowed unless, of course, one is in possession of a burial vault which had available space for further deposits when the legislation came into force. Therefore, to have one’s remains deposited within, say, a cathedral, one must be cremated. Think of how many archbishops, bishops, deans, canons, archdeacons, organists, surveyors of the fabric and clerks of works have willingly, since 1902 when the Cremation Act came into being, had their remains committed to the cleansing flame just get in to a church.

One major source of dissatisfaction with the cremation process lies in the after-care; whilst buried bodies usually have a monument of some description placed above them, this rarely happens with cremated remains. What you actually end up with, comparatively speaking, is very little for a whole lot - hundreds of pounds for a rose bush for ten years only, or a similar amount for a bronze plaque or a memorial. Consequently, most people opt for the Book of Remembrance where, for a few pounds, one can have an inscription on the page of the day of the month on which the deceased died. Others, not wanting to add to the financial burden, merely ask for the remains to be scattered.

But for many, the cremation option is selected simply because the entire process takes place under cover, in the dry, and in the warm. Indeed, such is the décor of many crematoria it is as though the service is taking place in one’s drawing room.

According to the Rev’d Henry Scott-Holland, Death is nothing at all. But he was wrong; it is painful, ghastly, heart-rending, lonely, confusing and dreadful for those left behind. Part of this dreadfulness is experiencing the funeral service itself, sometimes rendered less painful by having the obsequies within the warmth of the crematorium chapel, or highlighted by enduring a burial service in a wind-swept churchyard on a particularly rainy day. The latter is terribly English, whilst the former still seems somewhat “foreign”. As for me? I’ve opted for burial, but not quite yet of course.