Saturday 18 February 2012

Cremation

Cremation is a polluting activity
© Godric Godricson
The British are often pragmatic in nature and frequently elect to be cremated  rather than  to be buried. They perceive that cremation is ‘clean’ and there is a long tradition of cremation. The British  traditionally consider that cremation is better for the environment because the process takes up less physical space and the family don’t have to keep the headstone clean and tidy. In many ways, cremation appears a clean and tidy ‘once and for-all’ solution. For a predominantly Protestant country like Britain, largely unaware of  Catholic teaching, cremation appears a traditionally desirable process.

It's correct that cremated remains don’t take up the same amount of land  that burials require. However, the public do not consider that  the process of cremation releases huge volumes of air pollution and particulates into the atmosphere. I know that this idea of releasing material is a little ‘icky’ but let’s briefly consider what happens when a body is cremated.  When we place a body in the cremator we are placing a lot of material in there. In addition to human remains we are also adding 'wood', textiles and potentially a lot of embalming fluid and chemicals. That sounds very unhealthy as a combination. In effect, if a  human body plus the  coffin  weighs approximately  300 pounds and we are left with a final weight of 2 pounds in  ashes that means a lot of material has gone up the chimney as smoke . We have deliberately sent a lot of solid material up the chimney and created nothing but smoke and water vapour. How do we, on the one hand, believe that we love the departed and honour their memory and, on the other hand, consign them into the upper atmosphere for everyone on Earth to breath and ingest.

Most of the adverse chemicals released in the cremation are created from the foam held in rubber mattress, the polyester fabric of coffin linings, human clothing and the urethane finishes of the coffin itself. The composite 'wood' of conventional coffins is often comprised of fibreboard rather than ‘real’ wood and is held together by complex and polluting glue and oil based resins. We have heard from newspaper reports of the toxins and pollutants dispersed into the atmosphere through the chimneys and such pollutants are a fairly toxic cocktail of heavy metals, hydrogen chloride, dioxins and furans. The metal from our dental fillings are lethal . Crematoria are aware of this pollution and have doubtless taken care of the matter (as far as they can) with the use of filters  The effect of such attempts to contain pollution are probably quite patchy depending on efficiency and local circumstances.

I would suggest that the rise in ‘green burials’ and ‘woodland’ burials are an expression of a concern at the effects of cremation and the pollution that cremations cause. In effect, there can be no more energy efficient way of disposing of the dead than to  open up a grave and reverently place the body in there to await decomposition. Without embalming and using only natural fabrics, the body quickly returns to its constituent materials and soaks into the earth from which it came. So, much better than all that natural gas being consumed to transform a body largely comprised of water into gas and smoke.

If you consider that this article may be incorrect. I challenge people to stand close to a cremator and see what happens  when a funeral party has left the environment. The chamber is fired up and sooner or later there is that faint, vague and sweetish smell of burnt 'wood' in the atmosphere. It's a pleasant smell but one that betokens that the filters aren’t working.

Resurrectionists Great Yarmouth - 1827

"Great excitement was caused in Yarmouth by the discovery that upwards of twenty recently interred bodies had been removed from the churchyard by resurrection men.  “The churchyard was quickly crowded by the population.  Wives were searching for the remains of their deceased husbands, husbands for those of their wives, and parents for their children.”  Three men, Thomas Smith, alias Vaughan, William Barber, and Robert Barber, were apprehended, and committed for trial at Yarmouth Quarter Sessions, whence, on April 1st, 1828, the indictment was removed by writ of certiorari to the Court of King’s Bench.  The case was tried at Norwich Assizes, before Lord Chief Baron Alexander, on August 11th, 1828, when only Vaughan (or Smith) was proceeded against.  Robert Barker turned King’s evidence, and described the method by which the graves were robbed, and how the bodies were sent to London by the wain.  A verdict of guilty was returned, and on November 14th, 1828, the prisoner was brought up for sentence in the Court of King’s Bench.  He urged that he was driven by poverty to the commission of the offence, and was sentenced by Mr. Justice Bayley to six months’ imprisonment in the house of correction at Norwich."

Title: Norfolk Annals  A Chronological Record of Remarkable Events in the Nineteeth Century, Vol. 1     Author: Charles Mackie

William Chilvers Butters d. 2 October 1894

© Godric Godricson







For research on Butters see this link

Elizabeth Boyce d. 3 June 1870

" 
© Godric Godricson
PURSUANT to a Decree of the High Court of Chancery,made in a cause Oldfield v. Boyce, the creditors of Elizabeth Boyce, late of Ashill, in the county of Norfolk, Widow (who died in or about the month of June, 1870), are, on or before the 18th day of May, 1872, to send by post, prepaid, to Henry Baxter Branwhite Mason, of Wereham (Dereham?) , in the county of Norfolk, Solicitor for the plaintiffs, Edmund Oldfield and Henry Oldfield, the executors of the said Elizabeth Boyce, deceased, their Christian and surnames, addresses and descriptions, the full particulars of their claims, a statement of their accounts, and the nature of the securities (if any) held by them, or in default thereof they will be peremptorily excluded from the benefit of the said Decree. Every creditor holding any security is to produce the same before the Master of the Rolls, at his chamber?, situate in the Rolls-yard, Chancery- lane, in the county of Middlesex, on Wednesday, the 31st day of May next, at half-past eleven o'clock in the forenoon, being the time appointed for adjudicating on the claims.—Dated this 12th day of April, 1872.”

War dead - Private George Butters

© Godric Godricson






Private George Butters M2/200614, M.T., Army Service Corps who died age 37 on 9 November 1918. Son of Richard and Mary Ann Butters, of Hale Rd., Ashill. ASHILL (ST NICHOLAS) CHURCHYARD