The mourning rituals of the Victorians
RITES OF PASSAGE Death and mourning in Victorian Britain
JUDITH FLANDERS 396pp. Picador. £25.
WHEN THE FUTURE E DWARD VII and Princess Alexandra’s sixth infant died shortly after birth in 1871, Queen Victoria suggested that the couple retire into a long period of mourning. But the heir-apparent was of a different mind: “I think it’s one’s duty not to nurse one’s sorrow, however much one may feel it”, he responded. What was more, he feared that such a retreat would send his wife into a “low and morbid state”. Was he right? Were the mourning rituals of the Victorians therapeutic, or self-indulgent, and perhaps detrimental to their well-being? And how did they affect the wider culture? In Rites of Passage, as in her earlier studies of the Victorians, Judith Flanders brings their past into our present, giving us a better understanding of our forebears, and making us reflect on our own way of life as well.
For one thing, Flanders points out that Victoria was neither unusual in her permanent adoption of mourning dress (a custom followed by many widows) nor respected for her endless grieving. Many besides her son deplored the dereliction of public duty. Nevertheless, a degree of visible mourning was normal and expected in that era. To try to stave off thoughts of death, as we do today, was next to impossible when childbirth was so risky, infant mortality rates so high, and many diseases untreatable. This was also a time of regular epidemics, and, sadly enough, we now have a better idea of their impact. Flanders’s gift for combining well-documented research on the subject with intimate and compassionate retellings of people’s personal histories brings all this vividly home to us. Her early account of how scarlet fever claimed five of Archibald Tait’s children is particularly harrowing. Tait was a prominent figure: he had stepped into Thomas Arnold’s shoes as Headmaster of Rugby, was now Dean of Carlisle, and would later be a compelling voice for the church as Archbishop of Canterbury. But the focus here is on his wife, Catherine, wracked with grief as one child after another was snatched away from her.
Flanders proceeds logically now, from sickbed to deathbed and its appurtenances, with the same mixture of scholarly rigour and empathy. We learn about shrouds and winding-sheets (usefully illustrated, like so much else here), and how the coffin mattress was stuffed and decorated. The details are gruesome: the mattress, for example, stopped the corpse bumping around as the coffin was moved, and soaked up leakage from it. But there is nothing coldly forensic about the telling. Our attention and feelings are engaged as Flanders draws us on from the preparation of the body and all the superstitions surrounding the lying-in and carrying-out (feet first, of course, as the saying goes still, or bad l
