Death, Grief and Poverty in Britain, 1870-1914 (review)

The past three decades have seen a remarkable expansion in social and cultural studies of death in both historical and contemporary contexts. Notable within this genre have been those focused on the culture of mourning in nineteenth-century Britain and on the impact of World War I. Almost exclusively, this literature has explored bereavement among the well-to-do; consideration of working-class deaths has occurred principally in relation to the shameful associations of the pauper grave. As Strange points out, this juxtaposition of the respectable and the shameful has led to oversimplification. Working-class cultures of death encompassed far more than the pauper funeral. Strange's study is the first to explore these cultures, and is notable both for its critique of the existing literature of death, and for its innovative methodology.

Strange describes her project as a history of emotion, but this methodologically complex work meshes an empirical account of the rituals of working-class death and mourning with interpretations derived from textual analysis and informed by a variety of disciplines. Perspectives from anthropology, medicine, and social, cultural, political, and religious history are deployed to develop the concept of fluidity as an analytical tool for the interpretation of historical experience. The crucial Victorian ideal of respectability is thus depicted not as a fixed cultural standard but as "a movable point within a broad, flexible and colourful landscape of death" (21). Diversity, not conformity, characterized the working-class culture—or cultures—of death. Strange's account illuminates that diversity with both sobriety and sensitivity.

Death's landscape determined the structure of the book. Beginning with an essay on historiography and methodology, it moves to sickness and the event of death. Then ensue details relating to the rituals of caring for the corpse (laying out and viewing the body, wakes, and postmortems), the funeral, a reassessment of the pauper burial (as distinct from the public burial), remembrance and the cemetery (religion and identity, public space and private loss, the neglected grave, etc.), loss, memory, and the management of complex feelings. Childrens' deaths merit a separate chapter, and an epilogue tackles the issue of death, grief and the changes associated with World War I.

Strange draws from a broad range of empirical sources—burial-board minutes, correspondence, and personal testimonies—to construct an account that is at once factually and emotionally informative. Readers may learn more than they ever wanted about the physical consequences of death, but the personal testimonies that elaborate the notions of fluidity and diversity are intriguing. The pauper burial itself was not a solid symbolic construct of humiliation but one that evoked differing responses and could be manipulated by families to their own emotional advantage. Far from being avoided at all costs, it was often used as an option that permitted necessary expenditure on other, emotionally important, components of mourning—such as dark clothing, funeral alcoholic libations, and baked meats. Being "buried with ham" was, for example, a significant social indicator. In developing the notion of fluidity as an important quality of human cultural responses to death, Strange also enriches our understanding of working-class life.