Hi Dave,
I think it was all to do with what they called The Union of City Benefices.
I can not speak for all towns and cities but as far as the City of London
was concerned, there were numerous churches that had lost the majority of
their congregations due to most of the inner London populace having moved
out into Essex,Kent,Surrey,Herts etc into what I suppose became the suburbs.
In Charles Dickens' book the Uncommercial Traveller, he describes a church
service that he attended at St James Garlichythe in 1860 (not far away from
St Dionis) where the parishoners had dwindled to just 20 and the church was
in a very run down state of repair.
Pressure to clear land in the City area of London and lack of use of
numerous churches bought about the Union of City Benefices act of Parliament
which allowed the demolition of some twenty of them.
Ones like St Dionis had very small burial grounds anyway and the pressure
for space and redevelopment did not allow for consecrated/deconsecrated
ground to be left as open park.
Regards TimC
----- Original Message -----
From: "davidwbarker" <davidwbarker(a)wanadoo.fr
To:
<catley(a)rootsweb.com
Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 12:45
PM
Subject: Re: [CATLEY] St Dionis reburials at City of London Cemetery
Hi All
Here's a piece of useless information .
It usedto be the case and probably still is, that land actually
consecrated
for burials by the church of England later often including areas of
large
public
cemteries , remained sacrosanct if the church or chapel on it was
deconsecrated and demolished .
If a ceremony of deconsecration for the land was not performed before the
chapel was removed then an act of parliament became necessary before any
developement could take place .
This applied in the case of the Old Cemetery in Linthorpe Road
Middlesbrough, Yorkshire, which remains a green open park to this day as
it
was considered to much trouble to put a Bill before parliament.
Regards Dave Barker.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim Cattley" <timjhcat(a)tiscali.co.uk
To:
<catley(a)rootsweb.com
Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2007
11:53 AM
Subject: [CATLEY] St Dionis reburials at City of London Cemetery
> Hi Joan,Erica and David,
> I have made direct telephone contact with the
Genealogical Department of
> The City of London Cemetery in Ilford and have seemingly unearthed a
> strange anomaly re St Dionis.
> As you are aware, numerous exhumations were carried out
in the latter
part
> of the 1800's due to central London church demolitions and
in most cases
> the bodies were re-interred in the new Ilford cemetery.
> As one would expect, the normal state of affairs was that
the bodies
were
> buried together in a communal grave and marked as such. It seems
that
> there are plenty of examples of this happening for other inner London
> churches but not for St Dionis and there is now a certain amount of head
> scratching going on because they can not find any records or grave at
all!
> There is apparently a memorial
plaque which suggests that the bodies
were
> accepted but no records of transfer.
> The indications are thus that the bodies are somewhere
within this 200
> acre site unmarked and forgotten.
> I detect a certain amount of embarrassment "well it
was a long time ago
> now" etc etc but they tell me that they are going to consult a local
> expert and see if they can follow this up and let me know.
> Joan: one suggestion from them was that we re check the
St Dionis
burial
> register for the last entries to see if there is any evidence
there?
> I have no idea when St Dionis closed prior to demolition,
was it weeks,
> months or years I wonder?
> Will keep you posted re developments.
> Cheers Tim
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