Reading the Regency

Funeral Rites and Burials

Mourning Clothes - the black clothes, gloves, scarves and hat or armbands worn by mourners. Gloves, scarves and hatbands were often given as gifts to those who attended the funeral. The subject of mourning clothes is a big topic on its own that I'll cover in more detail in a future chapter.

Mourning or Funeral Coach - the coaches carrying the mourners that followed the coffin to the church. If the closest family did not walk behind the hearse then they would be in the front coaches. The more coaches in a cortege, or procession, the more impressive the funeral. It wasn't unknown for some people to pay extra to include empty carriages in the cortege in order to make the procession of carriages look more impressive.

There would have been no wreaths of flowers sent by mourners to lay on the coffin or around the grave during the funeral. According to Richard Davey in his History of Mourning, published in 1890, that practice dated from around 1870:

"The fashion for sending costly wreaths to cover the coffin is recent, and was quite as unknown in Paris twenty years ago as it was in this country until about the same period."

Types of Funeral

For most people, their financial circumstances would dictate the sort of funeral they would have. A simple funeral, for a working man, would be a very different event than one arranged for a wealthy gentleman.

"All the family attended the funeral. It was on a Sunday, just before morning prayers; and as soon as George was interred, his father, brothers, and sisters, left the churchyard, to avoid being seen by the gay people who were coming to their devotion. As they went home, they passed through the field in which George used to work: there they saw his heap of docks, and his spade upright in the ground beside it, just as he had left it, the last time that he had ever worked."
[The Contrast, Tales & Novels vol 2. By Maria Edgeworth]

This working family would have walked to and from the church, with friends helping to shoulder the burden of the coffin. This was known as a Walking Funeral. If they lived some distance from the church they could also pay for the use of the parish bier to wheel the coffin to its final resting place. There would have been little to mark the passing of their relative apart from the entry in the burial register, and perhaps the wearing of mourning clothes, if they had any. The grave would have been unmarked, and unless the death was from an uncommon cause, such as an accident, it would not have been mentioned in the local newspaper.

For someone further up the social scale, the trappings of mourning, and the number of carriages in the cortege were visible indicators of the wealth and importance of the deceased, such as this example of the funeral of wealthy manufacturer Matthew Boulton:

"The funeral of this distinguished man took place with appropriate solemnity, August 3rd, at Handsworth, three quarters of a mile from Soho. A hearse and nine mourning coaches attended, but the coffin was carried by three sets of bearers, by hand, in mourning and scarfs; the hearse and coaches, and numberless carriages of the deceased's friends followed. Eighteen singers in cloaks preceded, singing appropriate Psalms the whole way. All the beadles of Birmingham rode on horseback, and kept the way open. The corpse was followed to the grave by 600 workmen of the manufactory of Soho, who had each a silver medal presented to him, struck for the occasion; they wore hat bands and gloves, and some mourning. The town was emptied of its principal inhabitants. The workmen were provided after the funeral with a dinner, and allowed to regale themselves for two hours. The expence of the funeral is calculated at 2,000l."
[Tradesman: Or, Commercial Magazine, Volume 3, pub. 1809]

In this particular example, the coffin is carried on the shoulders of bearers, not because they could not afford a hearse, but to create a memorable spectacle for the townsfolk.