Ceejay Writer: Welcome one and all to the October Aether Salon! Seating is casual. You’re welcome to haul a wearable seat out of your inventory, or a pillow to sit on the floor. If you would like a wearable salon chair, just IM me.
Ceejay Writer: Sera Puchkina is the Librarian here at the R.F. Burton Library, and a gracious hostess in giving the Salon free rein of the first floor. It wouldn’t be amiss to show the library your support by dropping a little something in the library’s donation box near the front door.
Ceejay Writer: I encourage you to join the inworld Aether Salon group, for reminders of upcoming salons.
https://world.secondlife.com/group/cbdd8d19-4c68-802c-8523-a95ea4181afc
Ceejay Writer: And if you enjoy literary-ish events, you can join my group for writer news and bookish event notices: Ceejaytopia
https://world.secondlife.com/group/d85c42ac-0831-7281-abe6-79f5ce24fc92
Ceejay Writer: The transcript of today’s salon will be posted on the website. https://aethersalonhome.wordpress.com
Ceejay Writer: Our speaker today is a longtime Babbager who’s been known to spin a tune or three at his popular music and dance events. Be sure to join his group, “The Edward Pearse Project” to stay informed of his events. And now, please welcome Edward Pearse!
Ceejay Writer: All yours, sir!
Edward Pearse bows
Edward Pearse: Welcome to today’s topic, Necropolis
Edward Pearse: For thousands of years people have buried their dead.
Edward Pearse: There are many ways of doing this but for the majority it was creating a hole in the ground and placing the body into it.
Edward Pearse: Sometimes the hole would be a rather elaborate mausoleum that would contain members of the family.
Edward Pearse: With the rise of Christianity most Western countries buried their dead following the Christian tradition: burial on consecrated ground.
Edward Pearse: Those who could afford it would often place a memorial placed over the hole.
Edward Pearse: Those who couldn’t were often placed in large burial pits.
Edward Pearse: New graves would be dug into sections of the cemetery that had remained undisturbed for some time.
Edward Pearse: The bones of the previous burials would be removed and placed in charnel houses.
Edward Pearse: Most charnel houses were relatively simple affairs with urns and shelves.
Edward Pearse: Some Churches would get quite creative in their placement of bones.
Edward Pearse: The Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic has some of the most elaborate decorations seen in an ossuary.
Edward Pearse: They include chandeliers and a coat of arms of the former ruling family
Edward Pearse: In Paris, the Cimetière des Saints-Innocents or the Holy Innocents’ Cemetery, had been the resting place for Parisians since the 12th century and was the oldest cemetery in Paris.
Edward Pearse: Though also the largest in Paris its size only measured 130m by 65m.
Edward Pearse: ((Americans can convert to freedom units in their own time))
Edward Pearse: The site originally had individual sepulchres but expanded to house mass graves.
Edward Pearse: A single pit could hold between 1,200 and 1,500 bodies.
Edward Pearse: The larger pits were left open with the bodies decomposing until the pit was full.
Edward Pearse: Only then would it be closed and covered and a new pit opened.
Edward Pearse: Imagine what you think the stink of an 18th century city is like with sewerage, animal waste, tanneries, and rotting corpses all to flavour the experience.
Edward Pearse: By 1780 the cemetery held an estimated two million bodies.
Edward Pearse: That September heavy rains caused the wall of a neighbouring building to collapse, spilling hundreds of corpses into its cellar.
Edward Pearse: After this event authorities decreed that new burials within the Paris city walls were forbidden.
Edward Pearse: Further incidents in the cemetery caused authorities to completely close the cemetery.
Edward Pearse: Between 1785 and 1787 bones were removed and relocated into disused mining tunnels under Paris.
Edward Pearse: Their current resting place is now known as the Paris Catacombs.
Edward Pearse: Further burials of Parisians would be held outside the city in the new cemeteries of Montparnasse, Montmartre and Pére-Lachaise.
Edward Pearse: Across the Channel in Britain they were facing similar problems with a dramatic increase to the number of dead that had to be housed
Edward Pearse: A visit to Pére-Lachaise cemetery in 1821 by barrister George Frederick Carden inspired him to create Kensal Green Cemetery, the first of the “Magnificent Seven”
Edward Pearse: While some of the more progressive minds were inspired for new means of interment, others were still looking for cheap and convenient ways to dispose of the dead.
Edward Pearse: Enon Chapel was built around 1823 on Clement’s Lane (today St. Clement’s Lane) off Aldwych near the Strand in London.
Edward Pearse: The upper part was dedicated to the worship of God, with the dead buried in a vault beneath, separated by a board floor.
Edward Pearse: Enon Chapel was licensed for burials in 1823, which continued until the minister died in early 1842.
Edward Pearse: In 1840 it was alleged to a House of Lords select committee that the remains of “ten or twelve thousand” bodies had been concealed in a vault beneath Enon Chapel.
Edward Pearse: In 1847, George Walker, a prominent surgeon, bought the chapel and had most the bodies removed to and reburied at Norwood Cemetery.
Edward Pearse: Walker sold the building in 1850.
Edward Pearse: New owners of the building discovered that it had not been entirely emptied.
Edward Pearse: Rather than the expense of reburial they covered the existing wooden floor with a single brick floor, in turn covered by a new wooden floor, and opened the premises as a “low dancing-saloon”.
Edward Pearse: An old bill shows that dancing on the dead was one of the attractions of the place:
Edward Pearse: “Enon Chapel – Dancing on the Dead – Admission Threepence. No lady or gentleman admitted unless wearing shoes and stockings.”
Edward Pearse: I mentioned the Magnificent Seven earlier.
Edward Pearse: The name refers to seven large private cemeteries around London, that were built in response to growing concern about overcrowding in parish burial grounds.
Edward Pearse: They are, in order of establishment:
Edward Pearse: Kensal Green Cemetery 1833
Edward Pearse: West Norwood 1837
Edward Pearse: Highgate Opened in 1839
Edward Pearse: Abney Park in 1840
Edward Pearse: Brompton Cemetery 1840
Edward Pearse: Nunhead (Originally known as All Saints’ Cemetery) 1840
Edward Pearse: Tower Hamlets Cemetery 1841
Edward Pearse: Of these cemeteries Highgate is probably now the most famous.
Edward Pearse: The original ownership company went bankrupt just after WW2 and the cemetery fell into disrepair.
Edward Pearse: In 1854 the London Necropolis & National Mausoleum Company opened the Necropolis Railway
Edward Pearse: It ran train services for funerals from London to Brookwood Cemetery, 23 miles (37 km) southwest of London in Brookwood, Surrey.
Edward Pearse: As was standard practice at the time, tickets on the railway were priced and seated according to class.
Edward Pearse: Yes even the dead abided by the class system.
Edward Pearse: The railway rain daily services from London to Brookwood until 1902.
Edward Pearse: From this date services were “as needed” though if only a single third or second class ticket was to run, the service was held over to the following run.
Edward Pearse: The services ran until a bombing took out the terminus and most of the rolling stock in 1941.
Edward Pearse: Following cessation of hostilities in 1945 the board met to discuss rebuilding, but it was ultimately decided to dissolve the company.
Edward Pearse: Body Snatchers have become a trope in their own right thanks to the likes of Burke and Hare, and author Robert Louis Stephenson.
Edward Pearse: Though the practice itself was rife long before either became famous.
Edward Pearse: The dissection of corpses had long been a contentious issue.
Edward Pearse: Christian beliefs about the body’s sacredness had long held sway but the Enlightenment had brought in other thoughts and ideas about ultimate fate of the dead.
Edward Pearse: The study of medicine now proceeded with scientific insight, and bodies were needed for medical colleges to help train students.
Edward Pearse: Officially the government allowed the used of executed criminals for scientific study (which brought on such practices and phrenology which is something for another time).
Edward Pearse: However authorities turned a blind eye as to how such additional cadavers were acquired.
Edward Pearse: The mortsafe became an inventive tool to help protect the newly deceased from disturbance in the UK.
Edward Pearse: It appeared in the early 19th century and was a deterrent to convince body snatchers to try and easier target.
Edward Pearse: Burial practices have changed dramatically in the last hundred years or so.
Edward Pearse: The acceptance of cremation as a viable means of interment saw smaller grave space requirements.
Edward Pearse: The Victorian ideals of permanence have seen scandals and bankruptcy in cemeteries around the world.
Edward Pearse: While a burial plot may seem expensive, once that plot is used that space no longer generates income.
Edward Pearse: Locally to me the Melbourne General Cemetery suffered a major scandal in the early 1900s
Edward Pearse: It was discovered that plots were being sold in sections of the curbside and that actual road itself.
Edward Pearse: You can see graves lining the side of the road that clearly go against the East-West orienting standard.
Edward Pearse: Further scandal ensued after it was discovered a section of the old cemetery had had the headstones removed and sold for road-fill
Edward Pearse: then a 3 foot level of soil added to the area, and the graves resold as new interments.
Edward Pearse: Can’t embezzle money unless you get some in first 🙂
Edward Pearse: Many countries still hold burial to be in perpetuity.
Edward Pearse: Others merely hold the burial as a temporary interment.
Edward Pearse: Pére-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, that I referred to earlier, has some 5000 requests for burial each year.
Edward Pearse: Currently only 150 paid-for plots are available each year.
Edward Pearse: These tend to go to the highest bidder.
Edward Pearse: Even the cost of death is beyond the reach of many
Edward Pearse: Cemeteries can be a vast trove of information.
Edward Pearse: From burial practices and customs, to historical narratives, genealogy, and religion.
Edward Pearse: And of course the album covers for whichever local goth band is currently playing
Edward Pearse: Thank you for joining us today. I hope it wasn’t dead boring.
Edward Pearse: I’ll take questions though I have no idea if I can answer them
Rory Torrance: what was that “east-west orienting standard” you mentioned all about?
Edward Pearse: Tradition states that Christian burials should have the feet facing east, so come the Resurrection when the bodies stand, they will face Jesus who will arrive from the East
Edward Pearse: Which was why bones were kept, rather than just disposed of
Oriella Charik: Orientation is a sign in archeology that the burial was Christian
Edward Pearse: Can’t be resurrected if there’s no body apparently
Tamlorn Carterhaugh Wood: What has happened with Highgate? I hear that the “friends of Highgate” are quite restrictive.
Edward Pearse: Highgate’s ownership company went bust after WW2
Edward Pearse: So it became overgrown and fell into disrepair
Edward Pearse: However as part of all this plant growth
Edward Pearse: A whole bunch of wildlife and plant species returned to the area
Tamlorn Carterhaugh Wood: I know Elizabeth Siddal is buried there, but in an area now inaccessible
Edward Pearse: Some of them on the verge of extinction
Edward Pearse: So they couldn’t just go in with lawnmowers and clean it all out
Edward Pearse: Friends of Highgate are trying to balance between maintaining the buildings, but not driving out the wildlife
Tamlorn Carterhaugh Wood: I have also read that Highgate is haunted by something other than a ghost…interesting.
Edward Pearse: Then there’s a whole topic of graveyard architecture and meanings behind various monuments
Edward Pearse: Victorians didn’t do subtle
Emilly Shatner-Orr: Referring to the supposed Highgate vampire?
Emilly Shatner-Orr: Not sure there’s been a sighting in the last decade, but I could be wrong.
Edward Pearse: I think the last sighting of the vampire was the early 80s from memory
Emilly Shatner-Orr: There’s also a growing trend in green burial and water burial, though “water burial” is something of a misnomer.
Liz Wilner: water burial?
Liz Wilner: like…at sea?
Emilly Shatner-Orr reads back since she was pulled from the keys…No, burial at sea and water burial are different things.
Liz Wilner: what is a water burial, then?
Ceejay Writer: Then I am not sure what water burial is.
Emilly Shatner-Orr: So water burial is when a body is placed into a very large machine, and reduced to various nontoxic liquids. Hence, ‘water’.
Edward Pearse: Recycling 🙂
Wildstar Beaumont: basically what the used to do on Dune
Emilly Shatner-Orr: https://farewill.com/articles/a-guide-to-water-cremation
Emilly Shatner-Orr: That’s another term for it, “aquamation”, but…that’s cumbersome.
Aether Salon 