‘Transforming Sorrow into a Thousand Flowers’: Refashioning a Midlands’ Celebration of Death from the 1890s

Abstract

ABSTRACT A cultural revival in funeral floriography – the secret language of flowers – is a novel feature of modernity neglected by historiography. A ‘Russian flu’ pandemic which swept across Britain in the 1890s was a commercial catalyst for the floral industry. An excess in mortality of 125,000 people, reflected how 60% of the population were infected with influenza between 1889 and 1895. The floristry business flourished, by following the fashion to line graves with flowers and display them at crematoriums. In standard historical accounts, consumers were supposed to be less willing to buy into this elaborate funeral flora. Seldom have historical studies appreciated the popularity of floral tributes for the dead in provincial England. In a Midlands' case study , the experiences across provincial central England, touching on northern communities, highlight how florists were at the forefront of reviving floral death customs, some of which had not been in vogue since the eighteenth century.