Tod ist ihr Geschäft – Die Ökonomisierung der Beerdigungspraxis im viktorianischen London

Abstract

In this article, we use the company history of London's Brompton Cemetery to show how burial practices and, more generally, the handling of dead bodies changed during the nineteenth century. We argue that new strategies of dealing with the dead emerged which, in the long run, replaced established patterns: by the mid-19th century burial places were managed according to prevailing notions of efficiency, elaborate marketing schemes were implemented, and administrators used an increasingly economic rationale. To take these developments into account, we suggest the term "economization". In more general terms, we highlight that cemeteries such as Brompton can serve as an indicator of how entrepreneurial action permeated into new strata of British society.