Burial Laws Amendment Act 1880
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Citation | 1880 c. 41 |
| Year | 1880 |
Burial Laws Amendment Act, 1880
(43 & 44 Vict.) CHAPTER 41.
An Act to amend the Burial Laws.
[7th September 1880]
W HEREAS it is expedient to amend the law of burial in England and the Channel Islands:
Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
1 After passing of Act notice may be given that burial will take place in churchyard or graveyard without the rites of the Church of England.
1. After the passing of this Act any relative, friend, or legal representative having the charge of or being responsible for the burial of a deceased person may give forty-eight hours notice in writing, indorsed on the outside ‘Notice of Burial,’ to, or leave or cause the same to be left at the usual place of abode of the rector, vicar, or other incumbent, or in his absence the officiating minister in charge of any parish or ecclesiastical district or place, or any person appointed by him to receive such notice, that it is intended that such deceased person shall be buried within the churchyard or graveyard of such parish or ecclesiastical district or place without the performance, in the manner prescribed by law, of the service for the burial of the dead according to the rites of the Church of England, and after receiving such notice no rector, vicar, incumbent, or officiating minister shall be liable to any censure or penalty, ecclesiastical or civil, for permitting any such burial as aforesaid, Such notice shall be in writing, plainly signed with the name and stating the address of the person giving it, and shall be in the form or to the effect of Schedule (A.) annexed to this Act.
The word ‘graveyard’ in this Act shall include any burial ground or cemetery vested in any burial board, or provided under any Act relating to the burial of the dead, in which the parishioners or inhabitants of any parish or ecclesiastical district have rights of burial; and in the case of any such burial ground or cemetery, if a chaplain is appointed to perform the burial service of the Church of England therein, notice under this Act shall be addressed to such chaplain, but the same shall be given to or left at the office of the clerk of the burial board, if any, in whom any such burial ground or cemetery may be vested: Provided also, that it shall be lawful for the proprietors or directors of any proprietary cemetery or burial ground to make such byelaws or regulations as may be necessary for enabling any burial to take place therein in accordance with the provisions of this Act, any enactment to the contrary notwithstanding.
2 Paupers.
2. Such notice, in the case of any poor person deceased, whom the guardians of any parish or union are required or authorised by law to bury, may be given to the rector, vicar, or other incumbent in manner aforesaid, and also to the master of any workhouse in which such poor person may have died, or otherwise to the said guardians, lay the husband, wife, or next of kin of such poor person, who, for the purposes of this Act, shall be deemed to be the person having the charge of the burial of such deceased poor person; and in any such case it shall be the duty of the said guardians to permit the body of such deceased person to be buried in the manner provided by this Act.
3 Time of burial to be stated, subject to variation.
3. Such notice shall state the clay and hour when such burial is proposed to take place, and in case the time so stated be inconvenient on account of some other service having been, previously to the receipt of such notice, appointed to take place in such churchyard or graveyard, or the church or chapel connected therewith, or on account of any byelaws or regulations lawfully in force in any graveyard limiting the times at which burials may take place in such graveyard, the person receiving the notice shall, unless some other day or time shall be mutually arranged within twenty-four hours from the time of giving or leaving such notice, signify in writing, to be delivered to at the address or usual place of abode of the person from whom such notice has been received, or at the house where the deceased person is lying, at which hour of the day named in the notice, or (in case of burial in a churchyard, if such day shall be a Sunday, Good Friday, or Christmas Day) of the day next following, such burial shall take place; and it shall be lawful for the burial to take place, and it shall take place, at the hour so appointed or mutually arranged, and in other respects in accordance with the notice: Provided that, unless it shall be otherwise mutually arranged, the time of such burial shall be between the hours of ten o'clock in the forenoon and six o'clock in the afternoon if the burial be between the first day of April and the first day of October, and between...
To continue reading
Request your trial