The Metropolitan Interments Act 1850 was an act which regulated 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 Before it was fully implemented, it was repealed by the Burial Act 1852.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. 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. 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. The problem of dangerous and inadequate burial grounds was most severe in London. The Metropolitan Interments Act 1850 followed his recommendations on burials.
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. The General Board of Health was made a body corporate and given powers to enact the legislation.
It was able to buy land, including existing cemeteries, to provide burial grounds within and outside the burial district. They could enter into contracts with railway companies to provide carriages to transport bodies and mourners. The board was empowered to lay out the grounds, construct buildings and chapels. They could appoint chaplains. Every burial ground had to include a non-consecrated part. The act prohibited intramural burials.
The board could make recommendations for burials to cease in existing places, including those of churches, chapels, churchyards and burial places in the district. Residents of parishes in the district where burials had been discontinued had the right to be buried in grounds provided by the board. Burials could continue regardless of the provisions of the legislation at St Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey with permission of the monarch.
Implementation It was estimated it would cost £750,000 () 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.
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.Rugg, Julie Joyce (2020) Nineteenth-century burial reform: a reappraisal. Histoire, Medecine et Sante. pp. 79-95.
Metropolitan Burial District The area of the Metropolitan Burial District was given in Schedule A of the legislation:
City of London, including Inner Temple and Middle Temple
City and Liberties of Westminster St Margaret and St John St Paul Covent Garden St Anne Soho Whitehall Gardens Whitehall Richmond Terrace Close of the Collegiate Church of St Peter St Martin in the Fields St George Hanover Square St James St Mary le Strand St Clement Danes St Giles in the Fields and St George Bloomsbury St Andrew Holborn and St George the Martyr Saffron Hill, Hatton Garden, Ely Rents and Ely Place Liberty of the Rolls St Pancras St John Hampstead St Marylebone Paddington Precinct of the Savoy St Luke Liberty of Glasshouse Yard St Sepulchre St James Clerkenwell St Mary Islington St Mary Stoke Newington Charterhouse St Mary Whitechapel Christchurch Spitalfields St Leonard Shoreditch Liberty of Norton Folgate St John Hackney St Matthew Bethnal Green Mile End Old Town Mile End New Town St Mary Stratford Bow Bromley St Leonard All Saints Poplar St Anne Limehouse Ratcliffe St Paul Shadwell St George in the East St John Wapping East Smithfield Precinct of St Katharine Liberties of the Tower of London Old Artillery Ground Minories Old Tower Tower Within Wellclose Kensington St Luke Chelsea Fulham Hammersmith Lincolns Inn New Inn Grays Inn Staple Inn Furnival's Inn
St Paul Deptford St Nicholas Deptford Greenwich Woolwich Charlton Plumstead
Borough of Southwark St George the Martyr St Saviour St John Horsleydown St Olave St Thomas Battersea Bermondsey Camberwell Clapham Lambeth Newington Putney Rotherhithe Streatham Tooting Wandsworth Christchurch Liberty of the Clink Hatcham
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