Illustrated Police News, Saturday, 9th November 1872.On the 19th of October 1872, Henry Taylor, an undertaker aged sixty-six, was engaged at a funeral at Kensal Green Cemetery. Following the funeral service, which took place on a damp day, the mourners proceeded in coaches to the place of burial, where six bearers, including Mr Taylor, attempted to manoeuvre the coffin so that it could move head first towards the grave. The Illustrated Police News reported that Mr Taylor caught his foot against a stone and stumbled, and that the other five bearers released their hold on the coffin to save themselves, allowing it to fall onto Mr Taylor, fracturing his jaw and ribs.
Great confusion ensued, and the widow of the man who was being buried almost went into hysterics. Eventually, the funeral went ahead, and Mr Taylor was taken to University College Hospital for treatment, where he died from his injuries on the 24th of October. The jury at the inquest that followed, where the verdict was recorded as 'accidental death', recommended that straps should be placed around coffins to help prevent such tragic accidents in the future.
The London Evening Standard of Thursday, 31st October 1872, contains a letter from a friend of Mr Taylor's (signed G. A. N.), that tells a different story. He states that Mr Taylor was bearer at the foot of the coffin and that, after the unfortunate man fell inwards and across the feet of the bearer next to him, the coffin got away from the two men at the rear, leaving the remaining four bearers to hold it aloft. The two middle bearers, finding themselves unable to support the coffin's great weight, were forced to release their hold. And that left the two bearers at the head of the coffin, one of whom was G. A. N., the writer of the letter. They struggled to avert the catastrophe and, according to the gravedigger, 'stuck to it to the last', but to no avail.
Letters followed regarding the method used to convey coffins to their graves - namely, upon bare shoulders - and pointed out that Mr Taylor and his colleagues were city undertakers. They, one clergyman (and member of the cemetery board) pointed out, were no doubt extremely used to doing their particular job, unlike those who acted as bearers in more remote parts of the country, where bearers were picked 'here, there and everywhere'. If such a catastrophe could befall such men, what would become of the those called on to do the job with no previous experience of it?
Twenty-seven years later, The Gloucestershire Echo reported, on the 4th of May 1900, that a Northampton undertaker by the name of Sutch (no first name was given) was helping to carry a coffin when another bearer lost his hold. The corner of the coffin struck Sutch on the knee, and blood poisoning set in, killing the poor man.
