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Was a death cert required for burial in 1881?

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  • Was a death cert required for burial in 1881?

    I was ordering some certificates last night when I realised something was a bit strange.

    I have census refs for Samuel Morrall in Alvechurch up to 1871 and his death down as 1881, but no actual date
    As I filled in the boxes online, I realised that his death was actually registered in the Apr-May-Jun quarter, so he could have been on the census. I looked but couldn't find him. I checked others with the same reference and some are on the census (in Redditch).

    So, Samuel probably died right at the end of March? The strange thing is - his wife has exactly the same reference. Alright, they were 88 and 85, but isn't this a bit unusual? I ordered Sarah's cert as well as I'm now very curious about what finished them both off.

    Was it still a case of waiting til the registrar hit town, or could they both have died on the same day?
    Helen

    http://www.familytreeforum.com/wiki/...enSmithToo-296

  • #2
    Its quite common, even these days, for both partners of an elderly couple to die within weeks or even days of each other.

    The death certificate we get from the GRO is not the same thing as a burial certificate (think that's what it called these days). I don't know if you needed a piece of paper to bury someone in 1881.

    Anne

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    • #3
      Yes, by 1881, you needed to produce a Certificate of the Registration of Death before you could bury a body.

      The 1881 census was taken on 3rd April. You had (still have) six days to register a death, so he could have died the last week in March, or the !st/2nd April.

      I have noticed that the GRO indexes can be a bit fuzzy about the quarter, especially when an event occurs at the end of one quarter/beginning of the next. You will often find such entries have been correctly recorded locally though.

      Final thought - he could have been ill, in hospital/workhouse, under just his initials on census night!

      OC

      Comment


      • #4
        Coincidentally, I was just reading this from the Durham Records site:

        Most of us have ancestors whose deaths cannot be found in the GRO indexes. We have Mary Ann Cotton to thank for the system changing in 1874.

        Civil registration of births, deaths and marriages was introduced in England and Wales on July 1, 1837. It was meant to be compulsory, but a small fee was charged for each registration and the law specified no penalty for failure to register. There was no way round paying for a marriage licence if a union was to have any legal validity (although we do find cases of unregistered marriages), but many people, particularly the poor who lived some distance from the registrar's office, did not bother to register births and deaths. Why bother making a long journey to purchase a piece of paper which told you what you already knew? It was not necessary to obtain a death certificate before a corpse was disposed of - in fact the only reason to bother with a death certificate at all was if the deceased was insured and the insurance company demanded to see a death certificate before paying out. For the first few decades of the registration system, many births and deaths, possibly running into the millions, missed the official net. Then, in the autumn of 1872, a serial killer was uncovered almost by accident at West Auckland in County Durham, which obliged the authorities to have a rethink. This killer was a middle-aged woman who, in a rampage across the northeast between 1860 and 1872, may have poisoned as many as 21 people, mostly her own blood relatives, for their insurance money,

        The ease with which Mary Ann Cotton (nee Robson; formerly Mowbray, Ward and Robinson) flouted the existing registration and insurance systems by constantly remarrying and changing her name and murdering with apparent impunity sufficiently disturbed the authorities such that nine months after her execution at Durham in March 1873, the fee for the registration of births and deaths was abolished (the marriage licence fee remained) and a substantial fine or imprisonment was introduced for failure to record a birth. The new penalty for not reporting a death was prison. From January 1, 1874 it also became necessary to obtain a death certificate, signed by a medic, before a funeral could proceed.

        The genealogical world therefore owes a debt of gratitude to Mary Ann Cotton and her perversity. Before Mary Ann, many births and deaths went unrecorded. After Mary Ann, very few were.
        Durham Records Online: Mary Ann Cotton, Dead But Not Forgotten

        And no, she's not in my tree .... :p

        Comment


        • #5
          Ooh, that's interesting. I knew about Mary Ann Cotton as Cotton is one of OH's main surnames (her last husband isn't connected to OH though!) and I came across her whilst loooking in The Times newspaper. However, I hadn't realised her case was significant re the tightening of the GRO regs.
          Last edited by Merry Monty Montgomery; 02-05-09, 23:27.

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          • #6
            Blackberry

            Mary Ann Cotton was the head on the pimple, lol! It was known before her activities, that people were literally getting away with murder, mostly poisonings, which is a peculiarly female crime.

            The insurance companies and the burial clubs had long been very uneasy about the ease in which someone could insure and then murder a person at a time when no medical death cert was necessary, and no registration of the death required. Mary Ann Cotton gave them the voice to get the law changed.

            They had their suspicions about many cases, but without evidence, it was only a suspicion and it took the invention of a test for arsenic poisoning to consolidate their fears. (Arsenic being the poison of choice as it was freely available and dead cheap and roused no suspicion when it was purchased - this led to the introduction of poison registers to be kept by pharmacist)

            It was also about this time that the function of the Coroner changed. Until then, he was only alerted to suspicious deaths by a neighbour or relative, or whoever - the police, doctors etc had no duty to report their suspicions to the Coroner. He worked completely independantly of any authority other thasn his own.

            In a book called The Victorian Poisoner, the author estimates that over 10,000 people were known to have been poisoned for financial gain in the 1800s, but suspects that many more went undetected and unsuspected.

            OC

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            • #7
              How interesting. Thanks for the information.

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              • #8
                I have a signed copy of the book Mary Ann Cotton Dead But Not Forgotten by Tony Whitehead, it makes very interesting reading, possibly because I'm a County Durham lass so know all the places mentioned in the book. Some of the children are buried in the same churchyard as some of my rellies.
                Daphne

                Looking for Northey, Goodfellow, Jobes, Heal, Lilburn, Curry, Gay, Carpenter, Johns, Harris, Vigus from Cornwall, Somerset, Durham, Northumberland, Cumberland, USA, Australia.

                Comment


                • #9
                  The certificate the GP signs which you need for a burial isn't the death cert you get at the registrar's. They are two separate certificates.
                  ~ with love from Little Nell~
                  Chowns, Dunt, Emms, Mealing, Purvey & Smoothy

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Little Nell View Post
                    The certificate the GP signs which you need for a burial isn't the death cert you get at the registrar's. They are two separate certificates.
                    Yep and you can't register a death until you have the certification from the doctor and the one from the doctor is the one you also need for burial like you say not the registered death certificate.

                    As Little Nell says they are two entirely different documents.

                    When you go to register a death the registrar keeps the certification from the doctor. I arranged cremation of my mother two days before I registered her death because I had the certification from the doctor.
                    Last edited by Guest; 03-05-09, 15:14.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      I've done a quick check with initials SM and not found a match, so it looks like both Samuel & Sarah died in the week prior to the census being taken.

                      Thanks for the interesting information. Its amazing what a simple little query turns up.
                      Helen

                      http://www.familytreeforum.com/wiki/...enSmithToo-296

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Hi Helen

                        Had a look at your names, am in Cotgrave if you need any photo's etc
                        Elaine
                        Elaine

                        Looking for Ward, Moore, Hunt, Warren...and who was Gertrude Wills

                        http://leicestermoores.tribalpages.com
                        http://wardnottsleics.tribalpages.com

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by maggie_4_7 View Post
                          Yep and you can't register a death until you have the certification from the doctor and the one from the doctor is the one you also need for burial like you say not the registered death certificate.

                          As Little Nell says they are two entirely different documents.

                          When you go to register a death the registrar keeps the certification from the doctor. I arranged cremation of my mother two days before I registered her death because I had the certification from the doctor.
                          Yes, father in law and me arranged the funeral for his sister with the form from the hospital confirming her death. The death cert wasn't issued until almost two months later until after the inquest when the informant was the coroner.

                          She died 8th January, was buried 30th January and the inquest was 3rd March.

                          To be issued with a death cert you need a cause of death, which in this case couldn't be determined until after the inquest.

                          Given slightly differing dates, date of death and the quarter the cert was issued would not have been the same.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Margaret

                            My understanding is that the Registrar records and issues a temporary registration of death pending the results of an inquest., in order that the family may arrange a funeral. The full death REGISTRATION certificate is issued when the inquest is concluded.

                            The point here is that the Registrar is aware that a death has taken place and he has recorded it in some book or other. You cannot bury/cremate a body unless you have INFORMED the Registrar of the death. How he ultimately records it is his business, officially

                            In the case of cremation, you need the MEDICAL certificate of death with two doctors' signatures, not one.

                            OC

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Olde Crone Holden View Post
                              Margaret

                              My understanding is that the Registrar records and issues a temporary registration of death pending the results of an inquest., in order that the family may arrange a funeral. The full death REGISTRATION certificate is issued when the inquest is concluded.

                              The point here is that the Registrar is aware that a death has taken place and he has recorded it in some book or other. You cannot bury/cremate a body unless you have INFORMED the Registrar of the death. How he ultimately records it is his business, officially

                              In the case of cremation, you need the MEDICAL certificate of death with two doctors' signatures, not one.
                              OC
                              This was 2003 and all I remember is that we were given a green form of some kind. I don't remember where this came from. I did all the arranging with f i l. We never visited the registrar. His sister was found dead in her house, the police were called and it was them who contacted f i l from her phone records. He only called her a couple of days before her death.
                              We had to take this green form to the funeral director and that was some sort of permission to bury.

                              Maybe the authorities contacted the registrar and then we were given this. I don't know.

                              I do remember us being handed the death cert by the coroners secretary immediately after the inquest though.

                              Comment


                              • #16
                                You can arrange a funeral before registering a death although it is advisable that you register the death before the actual funeral.

                                I arranged my mother's cremation before I registered her death, two days before actually. All I needed was Medical Certificate of Cause of Death signed by the doctor in attendance and a form that is placed in a secure envelope giving the funeral directors the authority to go pick up the deceased.

                                Obviously when a coroner/inquest is involved it will be vastly different depending on individual circumstances and entirely up to the coroner.

                                However, the law changed on 1 Jan 2009 regarding the forms needed for cremation because of the Shipman enquiry, they've put in some more safety nets.

                                Edit to say: of course registering a death still has to be within 5 days in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and within 8 days in Scotland
                                Last edited by Guest; 04-05-09, 11:52.

                                Comment


                                • #17
                                  I have 3 other cases of double index entries -
                                  2 young brothers killed together in a gas explosion at a coal mine, consectutive entries registered by the coroner 5 weeks after the event in 1850.
                                  2 adult brothers who both died of cholera on the same day in 1849 and were also consectutive entries, although the informants were different.
                                  A girl and her mother who died 4 days apart in 1880 and were registered separately by the grandmother and have 2 entries separating them.

                                  Again thanks for your info.
                                  Helen

                                  http://www.familytreeforum.com/wiki/...enSmithToo-296

                                  Comment

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