R v Price

Content warning - death/death of a child

Today 78% of all deaths in the UK are followed by cremation, according to the Cremation Society [1]. But its ‘popularity’ (or, more accurately, its renewed popularity) is a relatively recent development.

“Although widely practised by the ancient Greeks and Romans, cremation fell into disfavour with the spread of Christianity, and its emphasis on resurrection of the body.” [2]

The first “re-emergence of interest” surfaced in 1658 with “an essay Hydriotaphia: Urn Burial, by Sir Thomas Browne, a physician from Norwich” [3]?

Cremation witnessed its revival proper in the late 1800s with Queen Victoria’s surgeon, Sir Henry Thompson, being its biggest proponent. Thompson authored a paper entitled 'The Treatment of the Body after Death' [4] in 1844, and in 1874 he founded the Cremation Society.

“His main reason for supporting cremation was that ’it was becoming a necessary sanitary precaution against the propagation of disease among a population daily growing larger in relation to the area it occupied’. Although the main argument he advanced was a sanitary one, other reasons are not lacking. Cremation, he believed, would prevent premature burial, would reduce the expense of funerals, would spare mourners the necessity of standing exposed to the weather during interment and the ashes, kept in urns in columbaria, would be safe from vandalism. Sir Henry Thompson also boldly advanced a further economic-technical argument; namely, that the ashes might be used as fertilizer!” [5]?

But the legal status of cremation in England was a bit fuzzy and by the late 1880s a handful of cases involving the cremation of human remains began to appear before the courts.

In 1882 the case of Williams v Williams [6] concerned the inclusion of instructions in the will of H. Crookenden to cremate his body.

“[Crookenden] directed his friend, Eliza Williams, to burn his body, and directed his executors to pay her expenses. The executors buried the body. Miss Williams got leave from the Secretary of State to disinter it in order, as she said, to be buried elsewhere. Having obtained possession of it by this misrepresentation, she burnt it, and sued the executors for her expenses.”?

Spoiler - she didn’t recover her costs, and it was ruled that “A man cannot dispose of his body by will”.

However, the issue of whether cremation was illegal or not was first considered in the case of R v Price. 140 years old today, R v. Price has been labelled the first authoritative ruling on cremation. [7]?

The background events are described by D. A. L. Bowen, lecturer in forensic medicine, in an address to the Royal Society of Medicine (1961):

“On Sunday evening, January 13, 1884, at Llantrisant in the Vale of Glamorgan, South Wales, as the chapel congregations walked homewards their attention was drawn to a field a few hundred yards from the main road, where a remarkably dressed figure stood beside a fire. As they drew near they saw with increasing horror and mounting fury a casket lying in the flames and their local doctor, Dr Price, now in his 84th year, dressed in Druidical costume, outlined by flames and smoke supervising its incineration. Some ran forward to extinguish the flames and removed the partly charred body of an infant, Dr Price’s dead baby, whilst others apprehended the doctor himself and were only restrained from violent action by the arrival of the police.”[8]

The Price judgment highlighted the absence of any law formally forbidding cremation.

Stephen, J:

“After full consideration, I am of the opinion that a person who burns instead of burying a dead body does not commit a criminal act, unless he does it in such a manner as to amount to a public nuisance at common law. My reason for this opinion is that upon the fullest examination of the authorities, I have, as the preceding review of them shews, been unable to discover any authority for the proposition that is is a misdemeanour to burn a dead body, and in the absence of such authority feel that I have no right to declare it to be.”[9]

The judge concluded:

“It may be that it would be well for Parliament to regulate or to forbid the burning of bodies, but the great leading rule of criminal law is that nothing is a crime unless it is plainly forbidden by law”[10]

And so Parliament did regulate, with the Cremation Act 1902 [11], enabling burial authorities to establish crematoria.

And what of Dr Price? Price died in 1893 and (of course) left comprehensive instructions for his own cremation.

on 31 January 1893.?

“Nine tonnes of coal were delivered to the spot on the summit of East Caerlan where two walls and an iron grid had been built to hold the coffin, which was specially made at a blacksmith’s shop in nearby Brynsadler. With everything in place, Gwenllian [Price’s daughter] followed the doctor’s instructions and issued tickets for the event. In total, 20,000 people ventured to Llantrisant, arriving from 4.00am. By noon, every one of the twenty-seven pubs in the town had run dry of ale as a carnival atmosphere prevailed. Price’s body was carried from his home, followed by his family members all dressed in Welsh costume.”[12]?

Further reading

Brown, T. Hydriotaphia/Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus (1658)

https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/hydriotaphia-urn-burial-and-the-garden-of-cyrus-1658/?

Thompson, H. The Treatment of the Body after Death, 1844 https://wellcomecollection.org/works/zspbdskp/items?

And lots more here: https://ukmhl.historicaltexts.jisc.ac.uk/results?terms=CREMATION&filter=service%7C%7Cukmhl?

Footnotes:

[1] Cremation Society

[2] Conway, H. The Law of the Dead, 2016

[3] Cremation Society. History of Modern Cremation in the United Kingdom from 1874: The First Hundred Years, 1974 https://www.cremation.org.uk/history-of-cremation-in-the-united-kingdom?

[4] Thompson, H. The Treatment of the Body after Death, 1844 https://wellcomecollection.org/works/zspbdskp/items?

[5] Cremation Society

[6] Williams v Williams 1882?20 ChD 659

[7] Conway

[8] Bowen, D. A. L. ‘Authority for Cremation:?R. v. Price?[1884] 12 Q.B.D. 247’ Medico-Legal Journal, Vol. 29, Issue 2 (1961)

[9] R v. Price (1884) 12 QBD 247?

[10] ibid

[11] Cremation Act 1902 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Edw7/2/8/contents/enacted?

[12] Powell, D. Eccentric: The Life of Dr William Price, 2005 https://www.cymmrodorion.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Eccentric-The-Life-of-Dr-William-Price.pdf?