Burial Act 1852 was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which regulated burials in the metropolitan areas of London, England. It repealed the Metropolitan Interments Act 1850 (13 & 14 Vict. c. 52), before it had been fully implemented, and reduced the powers of the General Board of Health to a regulatory role. The act permitted individual or groups of metropolitan vestries (as defined in schedule A) to set up burial boards that would purchase land to provide burial grounds.
Background The Metropolitan Interments Act 1850 (13 & 14 Vict. c. 52) was based on the work and recommendations of Edwin Chadwick regarding burials. It empowered the General Board of Health as a public burial body that could purchase eight existing large cemeteries around London. It could buy land and open new cemeteries to provide a burial service for the Metropolitan Burial District. In the event, only one cemetery was purchased, that is now known as Brompton Cemetery.
Provisions The Metropolitan Interments Act 1850 (13 & 14 Vict. c. 52) was repealed. The powers of the General Board of Health were reduced to a regulatory role.Rugg, Julie Joyce (2020) Nineteenth-century burial reform: a reappraisal. Histoire, Medecine et Sante. pp. 79-95.
Legacy The Burial Act 1853 (16 & 17 Vict. c. 134) extended the provisions to all of England outside London.
The larger metropolitan vestries were incorporated as sanitary authorities in 1855. The remaining non-administrative vestries retained limited powers, including the ability to set up burial boards.
Definition of the Metropolis The area of the Metropolis of the purposes of the legislation was given in Schedule A:
City of London, including Inner Temple and Middle Temple
City and Liberties of Westminster St Margaret and St John St Paul Covent Garden St Anne Soho Whitehall Gardens Whitehall Richmond Terrace Close of the Collegiate Church of St Peter St Martin in the Fields St George Hanover Square St James St Mary le Strand St Clement Danes St Giles in the Fields and St George Bloomsbury St Andrew Holborn and St George the Martyr Saffron Hill, Hatton Garden, Ely Rents and Ely Place Liberty of the Rolls St Pancras St John Hampstead St Marylebone Paddington Precinct of the Savoy St Luke Liberty of Glasshouse Yard St Sepulchre St James Clerkenwell St Mary Islington St Mary Stoke Newington Charterhouse St Mary Whitechapel Christchurch Spitalfields St Leonard Shoreditch Liberty of Norton Folgate St John Hackney St Matthew Bethnal Green Mile End Old Town Mile End New Town St Mary Stratford Bow Bromley St Leonard All Saints Poplar St Anne Limehouse Ratcliffe St Paul Shadwell St George in the East St John Wapping East Smithfield Precinct of St Katharine Liberties of the Tower of London Old Artillery Ground Minories Old Tower Tower Within Wellclose Kensington St Luke Chelsea Fulham Hammersmith Lincolns Inn New Inn Grays Inn Staple Inn Furnival's Inn Willesden
St Paul Deptford St Nicholas Deptford Greenwich Woolwich Charlton Plumstead
Borough of Southwark St George the Martyr St Saviour St John Horsleydown St Olave St Thomas Battersea Bermondsey Camberwell Clapham Lambeth Newington Putney Rotherhithe Streatham Tooting Wandsworth Christchurch Liberty of the Clink Hatcham
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