Metropolitan Interments Act 1850

Metropolitan Interments Act 1850

Act of Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title	An Act to make better Provision for the Interment of the Dead in and near the Metropolis.
Citation	13 & 14 Vict. c. 52
Dates
Royal assent	5 August 1850
Repealed	1 July 1852
Other legislation
Repealed by	Burial Act 1852
Status: Repealed
Text of statute as originally enacted

Metropolitan Interments Act 1850 was legislation to regulate burials in the metropolitan area of London, England. The legislation directed the General Board of Health to act in the Metropolitan Burial District defined in the act. The board was a public body empowered to purchase eight existing large cemeteries around London and provide a burial service for a wide area. It was based on the recommendations of Edwin Chadwick. Before it was fully implemented, it was repealed by the Burial Act 1852. Only one cemetery was purchased, that is still in public ownership and now known as Brompton Cemetery.

Background

The issue of burials and the link to disease came to public attention following the 1839 publication of Gatherings from Graveyards by George Walker.^[1] As a follow up to the 1842 Report on The Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain by Edwin Chadwick, which made recommendations for improvements to sanitary conditions, A Supplementary Report on the results of a Special Inquiry into The Practice of Interment in Towns was published in 1843.^[2] The General Board of Health had been created by the Public Health Act 1848. The 1848 act was based on Chadwick's recommendations regarding sanitation.^[3] The Metropolitan Interments Act 1850 followed his recommendations on burials.^[4]

Provisions

The Metropolitan Burial District was created from the cities of London and Westminster, the borough of Southwark and adjacent parishes listed in schedule A.^[5] The General Board of Health was made a body corporate and given powers to enact the legislation.^[6]

It was able to buy land, including existing cemeteries,^[a] to provide burial grounds within and outside the burial district.^[8] They could enter into contracts with railway companies to provide carriages to transport bodies and mourners.^[9] The board was empowered to lay out the grounds, construct buildings and chapels.^[10] They could appoint chaplains.^[11] Every burial ground had to include a non-consecrated part.^[12]

The board could make recommendations for burials to cease in existing places, including those of churches, chapels, churchyards and burial places in the district.^[13] Residents of parishes in the district where burials had been discontinued had the right to be buried in grounds provided by the board.^[14] Burials could continue regardless of the provisions of the legislation at St Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey with permission of the monarch.^[15]

Implementation

It was estimated it would cost £750,000 (equivalent to £87,293,149 in 2025) to purchase the eight large privately-owned cemeteries around London. Only one cemetery was purchased using the powers of the act, the West of London and Westminster Cemetery, that has remained in public ownership and is now known as Brompton Cemetery.^[16]

Legacy

It was repealed by the Burial Act 1852, before it had been fully implemented. The powers of the General Board of Health were reduced to a regulatory role.^[17]

Metropolitan Burial District

The area of the Metropolitan Burial District was given in Schedule A of the legislation:

Notes

References