By the close of the last century the London churchyards, and the additional burial-grounds provided by the parishes, were becoming so overcrowded, that it occurred to some adventurers to start cemeteries as private speculations; and it was greatly owing to their existence and to their abuse that the agitation arose which finally led to the passing of the “Act to amend the Laws concerning the Burial of the Dead in the Metropolis,” under which the metropolitan burial-grounds were closed. The speculation was found to be a successful one, and was imitated in different parts of London, until by the year 1835 there must have been at least fourteen burial-grounds in London carried on by private persons, besides some additional chapels with vaults under them conducted in the same way. A few of these grounds originated in connection with neighbouring places of worship, but were subsequently bought by private persons. In Central London there were (1) Spa Fields, Clerkenwell; (2) Thomas’ burial-ground, Golden Lane; (3) the New City Bunhill Fields, or the City of London burial-ground, Golden Lane. In North London there was (4) the New or Little Bunhill Fields, Church Street, Islington. In East London there were (5) Sheen’s burial-ground, Whitechapel; (6) Victoria Park Cemetery, Bethnal Green; (7) the East London Cemetery or Beaumont’s ground, Mile End; (8) Globe Fields burial-ground, Mile End Old Town; (9) the North-east London Cemetery, or Cambridge Heath burial-ground, or Peel Grove burial-ground, or Keldy’s Ground, Bethnal Green; (10) Gibraltar Walk burial-ground, Bethnal Green; (11) Ebenezer Chapel ground, Ratcliff Highway. And in South London (12) Butler’s burial-ground, Horselydown, or St. John’s; (13) the New Bunhill Fields, or Hoole and Martin’s ground, Deverell Street, New Kent Road; and (14) a ground in Ewer Street, Southwark.
The charges made for interments in these places were generally slightly lower than in the churchyards, in order to attract customers, and those who officiated at the funerals were, in many cases, not ministers of religion at all. In Butler’s burial-ground, for instance, the person who read the burial service (of the Church of England) wore a surplice, but he was merely an employé of the undertaker, who also acted as porter. In Hoole and Martin’s ground a Mr. Thomas Jenner was employed to officiate at funerals for £20 a year. He also read the burial service of the Church of England, but he was by trade a shoemaker, or a patten-maker, whose shop was close by. The owners of these private grounds were naturally tempted to crowd them to excess, and it is impossible to think of what took place in some of them without shuddering. No doubt practices as vile, as unwholesome, and as irreverent were carried on in many of the churchyards; but the over-crowding of the private grounds is so associated with the idea of private gloating over private gains that it is more repulsive.