The History of Victorian Death Rituals
When we think about the Victorian era, we tend to picture elaborate clothes, gaslit foggy streets, enormous houses, industrialization, and, eventually, Jack the Ripper. But there was another defining feature of Victorian life that is especially interesting from a horror perspective: Death was everywhere. The nineteenth century was a period when people were much more likely to die young than they are today. Infectious diseases, childbirth, accidents, industrial injuries, and childhood illnesses all contributed to a much higher mortality rate.
Generally, people were exposed to death and dying and even dead bodies at a much higher rate than we experience today. People commonly died at home. Families washed and dressed their own dead. Bodies could have remained in the house for days before burial. Friends and relatives came to see it. Children might be present. Funeral processions moved through the streets. Cemeteries became major public spaces.
At the same time, the nineteenth century was producing new technologies that completely changed the way people could remember the dead. There were other traditions that we might find morbid today, like turning human hair into artwork.
The Victorian Era refers to the period of Queen Victoria's reign over the United Kingdom, from 1837 to 1901. The term is also commonly used more broadly to describe the social, cultural, political, and technological developments of Britain and its empire during the 19th century. And it's a time period that was particularly ripe with horror inspirations. Think about all of the stories and movies that deal with tuberculosis, death rituals, ghost stories, ouija boards, and automatic writing. But despite this, Victorians were not uniquely obsessed with death. People across cultures in earlier centuries had plenty of elaborate funeral traditions, religious rituals surrounding death, relics, memorials, death portraits, mourning clothes, and memento mori. Think about the ancient Egyptians for example.
What changed in the nineteenth century was the combination of several different things happening at once. The first was mortality. For much of the nineteenth century, death was simply a more common part of everyday life.
Infectious diseases were major killers. Tuberculosis, cholera, typhoid, diphtheria, scarlet fever, smallpox, and other diseases could kill quickly. Because of this, child mortality was particularly high. A typical Victorian family could lose several children.And adults were not necessarily protected from sudden death either. Childbirth was dangerous. Industrial accidents were common. Transportation was becoming faster but was hardly safe by modern standards.
The second major factor was urbanization.Britain was rapidly becoming an industrial society. People moved into cities looking for work, and cities expanded at extraordinary rates. While London was expanding rapidly, the infrastructure didn’t keep up. Overcrowding, inadequate sanitation, contaminated water, and poor housing created conditions in which disease could spread rapidly. And that meant death wasn't just something that happened privately in a distant rural community. It was part of the urban environment.
The third factor was that the nineteenth century was becoming increasingly mobile. Railroads changed the way people traveled. That sounds unrelated to funerals, but it mattered enormously. People were increasingly separated from their families geographically. Someone could leave their hometown, move to London, travel overseas, or die hundreds of miles from home. Which results in an important shift towards trying to preserve someone who isn't physically there anymore? That question becomes extremely important in Victorian mourning culture.
Religion was also an important factor. Victorian Britain was still heavily influenced by Christianity, although the nineteenth century also saw growing secularism and challenges to traditional religious beliefs.Remembering the dead was not necessarily considered morbid, it was an expression of love, duty, faith, and family identity. This helps explain why some Victorian mourning practices seem strange to us. For example, a lock of someone's hair wasn't necessarily a creepy souvenir. It was a physical part of a person that could survive after the rest of them had disappeared. A photograph of a dead child wasn't necessarily intended to be frightening. It could be the only photograph the family ever had of that child. And that brings us to one of the most famous Victorian death rituals.
Photography was introduced in the nineteenth century, and of course changed everything. Before photography, if you wanted a portrait of someone, you generally needed to commission a painting, which was incredibly expensive. Photography eventually made portraiture much more accessible, but it became more mainstream during a period of time when, again, people were dying at high rates, which resulted in a natural pairing. The Library of Congress dates postmortem photography to as early as 1839, the same year photography was publicly introduced. These photographs were made specifically as keepsakes for mourners. And for some families, particularly those who couldn't afford regular portraits, a postmortem photograph might be the only way to capture a loved one's likeness.
The body would be washed and dressed. The photographer would arrange the corpse. The bodies could be placed in a bed or chair, sometimes they’d be surrounded by living family members, or they’d be alone. Sometimes they would be made to look alive. Those photos specifically resulted in sort of uncanny images.
Sometimes the body was posed upright, or the eyes could be propped open. Conversely, there are also photographs in which the deceased appears to be sleeping. Photography also became more useful because of technologies like the carte de visite. The carte de visite was a small, inexpensive photograph mounted on a card, patented in Paris in 1854, that became widely popular in the 1860s as people exchanged and collected portraits in albums, making photography accessible to a much broader public. Multiple prints could be produced from a single negative, meaning photographs could be sent to relatives who lived elsewhere.
Many Victorian Death Rituals were aimed at making loss feel tangible. Trying to preserve the person you’re missing in a physical way. Wearing black mourning clothing existed before the Victorian period, but during the nineteenth century it became increasingly formalized. In 1861, Prince Albert died at the age of 42. Queen Victoria was devastated. She withdrew from public life for a prolonged period and continued to wear mourning clothing and observe mourning practices for the rest of her life. She continued to wear black for approximately forty years, and this had an enormous impact on the culture.
Because of this, mourning clothing became more complicated with different categories or stages, like Second mourning. Ordinary mourning. Half mourning. Each with a different dress code. For example, jewelry was restricted during deep mourning, although black materials such as jet were considered appropriate. Eventually, colors such as grey, lavender, and mauve could be introduced during half mourning. You might be thinking, but this sounds so expensive. Surely, this is limited to wealthy families. But no, people who couldn't afford an entirely new wardrobe could dye existing clothing black. There was an expectation that those who observed you in mourning attire would recognize and respect that. This spurred a commercial industry, including clothing manufacturers.
Napoleon and Queen Victoria had something in common. They both owned jewelry made of hair. Hair was especially useful for memorial objects because it doesn't decompose quickly. It can be cut from a person while they are alive, or collected after death. And during the nineteenth century, hair could be woven, braided, curled, arranged, and incorporated into jewelry and decorative objects. People made brooches. Bracelets. Necklaces. Rings. Watch chains. And elaborate hair wreaths. Hair could also be combined with photographs or other memorial objects.
The Royal Collection Trust notes that nineteenth-century mourning jewelry frequently incorporated locks of human hair, and Queen Victoria herself possessed a locket containing Prince Albert's photograph and hair. The National Trust for Scotland describes hair ornaments as objects made to keep a part of a dead relative close to the wearer.
Not all mourning jewelry contained human remains. One of the most common materials associated with Victorian mourning jewelry was jet. Jet is a lightweight, black fossilized wood that can be polished and carved. It had been used as a decorative material before the Victorian period, but its popularity increased significantly during the nineteenth century. Whitby, in Yorkshire, became an important center of the jet industry. Jet could be made into necklaces, brooches, bracelets, earrings, beads, and other jewelry.
Black jet was particularly appropriate for mourning because of its color and appearance. Queen Victoria's public mourning after the death of Prince Albert in 1861 also increased the popularity of black mourning clothing and jewelry. Mourning jewelry did not always indicate that the wearer had recently lost someone. Some pieces were simply fashionable, while others were specifically made as memorial objects
We just did an entire series on masks with a specific emphasis on death masks, but we should also mention them here. A mold could be taken from a person's face after death and used to create a plaster or wax likeness. This wasn't exclusively Victorian.But the nineteenth century continued the tradition, and it contributes to the larger story we are telling around Victorian Era death rituals. And this reflects a larger Victorian fascination with capturing the physical evidence of a person.
While Queen Victoria's reign defined the Victorian era in Britain, the American Civil War took place during the same period, from 1861 to 1865, and significantly influenced American funeral practices, particularly the development of modern embalming. This is where Britain and the United States begin to diverge somewhat. Embalming had existed for thousands of years, but it was not generally a routine part of ordinary American funerals before the middle of the nineteenth century. That changed dramatically during the American Civil War.
The war created an enormous logistical problem because hundreds of thousands of men died far from home. Families wanted their sons, husbands, brothers, and fathers returned for burial locally, but there was no modern refrigeration. A corpse couldn't last sitting on a train for days in the summer. New embalming techniques developed in Europe during the nineteenth century, including methods that involved injecting preservative fluids into the body's arterial system.
During the Civil War, embalming surgeons began working near battlefields. The business became lucrative. Eventually, tens of thousands of soldiers were embalmed. When Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, his body was embalmed and transported by train from Washington, D.C., to Springfield, Illinois. The journey lasted weeks and included stops where enormous crowds came to see his body. Millions of Americans encountered the embalmed president.
For more on the Lincoln ghost train, listen to episode 155 of the Lunatics Radio Hour podcast.
Lincoln's funeral became a national event and helped normalize the idea that an American corpse could be preserved, transported, displayed, and viewed publicly. The Smithsonian describes the Civil War as a major turning point in the development of the American funeral industry. It also ended up inspiring Spiritualism in a huge way.
Victorian funerals could be elaborate public events, particularly for wealthy families.Funeral processions could include a hearse, horses, funeral attendants, mourners, and multiple carriages. The size and expense of a funeral often reflected the family's social and financial status. There was also significant social pressure to provide a respectable funeral, even among families who could not easily afford one. A poor or inadequate funeral could be viewed as a source of shame. Funeral directors and other businesses increasingly provided services and products for every part of the funeral. Families could purchase coffins, mourning clothes, carriages, flowers, stationery, jewelry, and other items associated with mourning. The funeral was therefore both a religious and social event, but it was also becoming an increasingly commercial industry.
Food was also part of Victorian funeral customs.In parts of Britain and the United States, families gave mourners special biscuits or cookies at funerals. These were sometimes called funeral biscuits. The biscuits could be packaged individually in paper wrappers. The packaging might include the name and date of death of the deceased, a religious verse, or other memorial imagery. Some examples were decorated with black ribbon or sealing wax.
Recipes varied by region. Some funeral biscuits were similar to sponge cakes, while others were more like shortbread. The practice was not unique to the Victorian period, but it continued during the nineteenth century. Funeral biscuits served a practical and social purpose. Visitors were often expected to stay with the family after the funeral, and providing food was part of the hospitality associated with the occasion. They also provided mourners with a small physical reminder of the deceased and the funeral.
Letters announcing a death were often written on mourning paper with a black border. Envelopes could also have black borders, sometimes varying in width according to the family's stage of mourning. The black border allowed the recipient to recognize that the letter contained news of a death before opening it. Mourning stationery was part of the larger system of Victorian mourning etiquette. Clothing, jewelry, stationery, and other objects could all communicate that someone was grieving.
These customs became particularly important in a society where families were increasingly separated by distance. Railroads and improved postal services allowed people to communicate quickly over long distances, but family members might still be unable to attend a funeral. Letters and mourning stationery provided a way to formally communicate the death. It's interesting to consider how the advent of mass transportation changed so much, including how people mourned and communicated with each other.
Victorian attitudes toward burial also changed as cities expanded. London's population increased dramatically during the nineteenth century, and many older churchyards became overcrowded. Beginning in the 1830s, several large new cemeteries were established around London. These became known collectively as the "Magnificent Seven." I’ve been to two of them. Highgate Cemetery and Brompton Cemetery, and there are no words.
The new cemeteries were designed as landscaped spaces rather than simply burial grounds. They included paths, trees, monuments, chapels, and family graves. The same general idea appeared in the United States through the rural cemetery movement.
Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge and Watertown, Massachusetts, opened in 1831 and became an important example of the American rural cemetery. These cemeteries were designed to provide attractive places for burial and for families to visit the graves of relatives.
They also became public spaces. And that’s something that I think a lot of people miss out on today. Cemeteries are generally considered parks and green spaces, and I find them to be some of the most peaceful, quiet and beautiful places in major cities.
In the Victorian Era, people could walk through the grounds, visit monuments, and spend time outdoors. Large monuments, mausoleums, statues, iron gates, and landscaped grounds became familiar elements of the nineteenth-century cemetery. The design of these cemeteries contributed to the cemetery imagery that later became common in Gothic literature and horror films.
Victorian cemeteries helped establish the visual vocabulary that later became standard in Gothic horror: Gothic chapels, elaborate tombs, underground catacombs, winding paths, dense vegetation, and monumental statues. Highgate Cemetery is one of the clearest examples, with its Tudor Gothic entrance, Egyptian Avenue, catacombs, and heavily landscaped grounds, and it later became a setting for films such as Taste the Blood of Dracula, Tales from the Crypt, and From Beyond the Grave.
For much of the nineteenth century, death often took place at home. Before the widespread development of modern hospitals, nursing homes, and funeral homes, families commonly cared for dying relatives in their own houses. After death, the body could remain in the home before burial. Family members or other caregivers could wash and dress the body. The body might then be placed in a coffin in a bedroom or parlor, where relatives and friends could visit.
This was sometimes referred to as a wake or viewing. We still call this a wake today. The practice allowed family members to spend time with the deceased before the funeral. It also meant that Victorian families generally had more direct contact with dead bodies than most people do today. Modern funeral practices increasingly separated the family from the physical handling of the dead. During the nineteenth century, that transition was beginning, particularly in the United States as professional undertakers and funeral homes became more common.
As we’ve alluded to, Victorian mourning customs have had a major influence on Gothic fiction and horror. Many of the images associated with Victorian death are now familiar horror imagery: black mourning clothes, cemeteries, funeral processions, old photographs, preserved bodies, family portraits, mausoleums, and memorial objects. One example is The Woman in Black. Susan Hill's 1983 novel and its later film adaptations use Victorian mourning clothing as part of the appearance of the ghost.
The Woman in Black is associated with funerals and the deaths of children. Her clothing immediately identifies her as a figure associated with mourning. The story takes a familiar nineteenth-century symbol, the woman in black mourning clothes, and turns it into a supernatural warning.
Another example is Guillermo del Toro's Crimson Peak, which is set in the late nineteenth century. The film uses Victorian mourning clothing and jewelry throughout the story. Costume designer Kate Hawley incorporated historical mourning jewelry into the costumes, including pieces inspired by Victorian hairwork. And highlights ideas about Victorian ideas about death, ghosts, family memory, and the preservation of the past.
Postmortem photography has also influenced horror imagery. The Others (2001) comes to mind as an example of this. Photographs are especially effective in horror because they are supposed to provide evidence of reality. A photograph records something that was physically in front of the camera.
Victorian mourning culture developed from a combination of high mortality, religious beliefs, social expectations, technological changes, and the growth of the funeral industry. People died at home more often, families had more direct contact with the dead, and funerals were generally more visible parts of community life. At the same time, new technologies gave people new ways to preserve the memory and appearance of the dead.
Most of these traditions were ways of preserving someone's memory and maintaining a connection with them after they died. But many of those same objects and rituals eventually became part of the visual language of horror: the postmortem photograph, the mourning widow, the cemetery, the preserved body, the family portrait. Victorian mourning culture helped create a lot of the imagery that we now automatically associate with ghosts, death, and the supernatural.
Sources
The Gettysburg Compiler: Until We Meet Again: Victorian Mourning Practices by Ziv Camri
The National Museum of Funeral History: 19th Century Mourning
Eat Your Sorrow With These Victorian Funeral Biscuits: Atlas Obscura
Another Atlas Obscura article: Clearing Up Myths About Victorian ‘Postmortem’ Photography
