Military funerals in Great Britain, 19th century. Terrible traditions of the Victorian era

The time from 1837 to 1901 in England went down in history as the reign of Queen Victoria. When her husband Prince Albert died, the Queen put on mourning and did not take it off until the end of her days. She never tied the knot again and raised her daughters alone. Subjects admired this romantic tragedy, death suddenly became fashionable, and grief for loved ones took on unusual forms.

1. Extravagant desires

Of course, most people in the Victorian era were not obsessed with the thought of their own death, but mourning was in fashion. To be on trend, the Victorians during their lifetime left instructions about what their funeral rites should be, even if they were completely healthy. Knowing that these letters and wills would be kept by their families forever, they formalized their “posthumous wishes” as if they were writing some kind of poem, specifying all the details that came to mind.

For example, a woman named Mary Drew wrote an entire book of instructions on what to do after her death. She suffered a miscarriage and died in hospital. Her last will and testament was detailed in 56 pages.

During the Victorian era, retrieving memorabilia that once belonged to the dead was extremely important. The vast majority of the items Mary bequeathed were jewelry for her friends and books for her men. And for her friends, for whom there was nothing valuable, Mary bequeathed strands of her hair.

2. Hair jewelry

Queen Victoria always carried with her, never removing, a locket containing a lock of her late husband Prince Albert's hair. Soon this “fashion” spread to everyone - many people carried with them strands of hair that once belonged to their loved ones. And the best way to do this was considered to be to turn hair into jewelry.

Over the years, people have become more creative in creating hair jewelry. They began to weave their hair into intricate designs, decorating brooches, earrings and necklaces with them. Sometimes they even made entire wreaths from hair collected from several deceased lovers. Because hair is so resistant to decay, jewelry made from it is still remarkably preserved in museums.

3. Mourning rings

Although it was possible to make hair jewelry even if the death of a loved one was sudden and unexpected, for some people this was not enough. But if it was known that a person would die within a few months, sometimes special jewelry was even ordered for this occasion. For example, Ada Lovelace was diagnosed with cancer in 1852. At the time, it was an absolute death sentence.

So Ada ordered special engraved rings for her husband and eldest daughter. On her husband's ring, she wrote that she hoped their souls would be connected forever. Even though Ada did not get along very well with her daughter, she had her ring engraved with the inscription that she respected her “sincerity.” The woman left money for her two younger sons, asking them to buy rings in her honor. Mrs. Lovelace was not the only person to order mourning rings. Documents and diaries from the Victorian era tell stories of special rings that people wore on a daily basis.

4. Mourning dress

Whenever someone died, the family was socially required to wear all-black clothing every day during the designated period of mourning. The garment was called a "mourning dress" and was a symbol to the rest of the world that the people wearing it were sad and needed to be left alone. People whose loved ones have recently died are not expected to show up to parties or other social events.

If someone whose loved ones had recently died appeared in public wearing clothes that looked too colorful and cheerful, it was a sign of disrespect. In 1875, a writer named Keith Norman MacDonald published a pamphlet arguing that such a tradition was foolish. Despite this, the tradition of wearing mourning dress continued for several more decades.

5. Mourning linen

During the Victorian era, more than just mourning dress was worn after the funeral of loved ones. Women wore all black, down to their underwear. At that time, death was considered not just fashionable, it was sexy. Women used arsenic and opium to make themselves look very pale and almost "dead" because women dying of tuberculosis were considered very beautiful. And the combination of this deadly white skin with black underwear was enough to arouse wild passion in people.

During the Victorian era, people were very prim and reserved in public, and quite perverted without prying eyes. White underwear was considered a sign of innocence, and was usually used for a woman's first sexual encounter on her wedding night. After the Victorian era, people became more open about their sexuality, and black lingerie began to be perceived as more erotic and sexually aggressive.

6. Post-mortem photographs

Since photography first became available to even middle-class people during the Victorian era, people felt the need to remember what their loved ones looked like before they were buried forever. At that time, due to long exposures, in order to take a photo, a person had to remain completely still for a very long time, so almost everyone in old photographs frowned or had a relaxed expression. It was much easier to photograph the dead. Another trend during the Victorian era was "spirit photography".

Blurred images of another person or the same subject's face seemed to float in the air in front of the person being photographed. Queen Victoria's son, Arthur, had a "spirit photograph". During the long exposure, his nanny leaned in front of the lens, trying to adjust Arthur's clothes, and appeared translucent in the photo.

People who were involved in the occult believed that ghosts had found a way to show themselves through photography. The National Science and Media Museum has a collection of photographs of Victorian spirits. By the end of the 19th century, people realized that these were not actually ghosts, but they still continued to take such photos for fun.

7. Sketches

Not every family could afford a photograph of their dead loved one, and some still preferred to paint portraits. An artist named John Colcott Horsley volunteered to visit the morgue to draw sketches of recently deceased children. Many families were too poor to pay for photographs or professional portraits.

If he learned that a child had died in the city, Horsley would quickly go to the morgue so he could sketch the child while his facial muscles were still relaxed, making it look more like the child was sleeping peacefully rather than dead.

Horsley wrote in his diary: “I consider it my duty to do this. In fact, if I did, who else would do something like that.” When John's own father died, the first thing he did was pull out his sketchbook. Other artists sketched family members while they were still alive (for example, if people had tuberculosis or any other disease that was considered basically a death sentence).

8. Sculptures and death masks

When Queen Victoria's husband died, she commissioned a strikingly similar black marble sculpture of him to be placed at Frogmore House. She always found solace and peace of mind looking at the sculpture of her loved one. When Queen Victoria eventually died, she was buried alongside Prince Albert and had a white alabaster sculpture on her tombstone.

At that time, wealthy families often commissioned alabaster images of their loved ones. Statues for family tombs were made from photographs taken almost immediately after death. Sometimes, even after death, a death mask was made from a person’s face in order to then sculpt an even more similar sculpture.

9. Funeral dolls

As a rule, before the funeral, a person was kept for some time in an open coffin so that his loved ones could say goodbye to him for the last time. However, many people simply could not bear to see their dead children. They ordered wax dolls that looked like their children, even using real hair from their heads.

Under certain circumstances (for example, if the child was stillborn, it was a miscarriage, or the child died somewhere outside the home), then instead of his body, a wax effigy was buried. Infant mortality was much more common during the Victorian era.

10. Envelopes and memory cards

In the Victorian era, if someone received a letter in a white envelope with a black border, they knew it was a notice of someone's death. In the works of Charlotte Bronte and Charles Dickens, such envelopes with a mourning frame are described quite often. The idea was that people would know in advance about the tragic notice in the envelope and have the opportunity to open it in private.

Inside is like https://site/blogs/editrecord/?recordid=36861#their envelopes did not always contain letters. Families sometimes paid for elaborate “memory cards” with elaborate images. When a child died, memory cards were made on white paper to symbolize the loss of an innocent life, and when an adult died, they were made on black paper.

Before the onset of the new year, it's time to learn about Christmas liberties -.

We're in the middle of the work week, so let's talk about the funeral customs that characterize our Old New England home. This text is the first part of a huge treatise compiled by the incomparable emeraldairtone .
Tomorrow - all about body snatchers, agate jewelry, post-mortems and memorabilia.
Let me remind you, by the way, that the year is 1909, and around us is the city of Erby on the border of Yorkshire and Lancashire, where the local landowners are the glorious family of Thornton baronets.
And in the funeral business we have a great specialist, Henry Bellman, who made a huge fortune for himself in London precisely from funeral services, mourning dresses, coffins and other solemn and gloomy paraphernalia of death. So he and his childhood friend Howard Acres, a local undertaker, have a great deal of respect for funeral traditions.

This is what awaited you if, God forbid, you were an old Victorian or a young Edwardian and suddenly died! Many of the customs listed below are already considered by the progressive public to be relics of the past, but still, nevertheless, it is at least curious.

(And yes, friends, read the posts carefully: we describe the Victorian realities in such detail simply because a) it’s interesting b) Queen Victoria of blessed memory reigned for more than 60 years, and King Edward for a little less than 10, and the legacy of the Victorian era is in our Edwardian heads difficult to overestimate c) and yet we are describing our recent PAST, and not current realities.)

So.

The inevitable end of all living things - death - frightens and terrifies, fascinates and obliges us to do a lot. Funerals and mourning have long been a public demonstration of not only and not so much personal feelings, from deep love, affection, simple sympathy to hopeless grief and psychological shock, but also of religious and class affiliation, family traditions, class and corporate alliances, designation of one’s place in the social hierarchy and in this sense - the inviolability of social foundations.

What color is mourning?
One of the strongest traditions in the study of costume has developed in Anglo-Saxon culture. This largely explains the fact that one of the favorite periods of costume historians, about which everything seems to be known, was the Victorian era. One of the main contributions of Great Britain to world fashion was the final establishment of white as a wedding color and black as a mourning color. The reason for this was the marriage of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1840, and in 1861 - the death of Prince Albert and Victoria's dressing in widow's clothes, which the queen wore until the end of her life in 1901.

Vic with his granddaughters Ella and Alix. This is our Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna and EIV Alexandra Feodorovna.
The Queen did not stop mourning for 40 years.

Widow's mourning

“The widow is obliged to wear a disgusting black dress without a single ribbon, ribbon, piece of lace - not even a flower should enliven it, not even jewelry - except perhaps a mourning brooch made of onyx or a necklace woven from the hair of the deceased.”

The widow's mourning was divided into several stages:

1) A year and one day. The clothes are only black, covered with crepe (this is silk fabric treated so that it does not shine). On the head is a special mourning cap or hat with a veil of black crepe. No shiny finishes, no embellishments, no shiny accessories. Even the buttons should be matte black. The exception is the wedding ring. Sometimes it was allowed to wear special mourning jewelry made of jet (black amber) and medallions and brooches with the hair of the deceased husband. Everything in the house should also be decorated with mourning, and even letters should be written on paper with a mourning border. A widow should not attend balls, receptions, theaters, or places of public promenade; it is better not to leave the house or estate at all. You can only accept visits.
2) The next six months. Clothing in black silk with crepe trim. You can gradually start making visits and going for walks.
3) Another six months. You can stop wearing crepe, clothes are just black.
4) Half-mourning period began two years after the death of her husband and lasted from six months to infinity. You can wear gray, discreet shades of lilac, violet, white trim. Pearls and amethysts were allowed as jewelry.

Some widows remained forever, some in semi-mourning, and some in mourning. Queen Victoria, for example, wore black clothes with crepe trim throughout her life after her husband's death. And since the Queen is an example to everyone, widow mourning became especially harsh in the Victorian era. A widow who, in the opinion of society, behaved too frivolously could be forever expelled from this society.

The Victorians were extremely sentimental, as we see.

Observing mourning and wearing mourning clothes helped a person who had lost a loved one to express his respect, reverence, and love for the deceased. The duration of mourning was determined by the mourner himself, and the deeper the feeling of grief from the loss of a dear person, the longer the mourning lasted.

These traditions are not only wild: they are in some ways very reasonable and carry a number of positive aspects.
People in mourning refused secular entertainment and amusements for the entire period. They were not supposed to go to receptions, weddings, balls, masquerades, or to the theater. If people who have experienced grief want to return to society, then they should send a postcard to their friends and acquaintances informing them about this. Until such a message is sent, society will not risk disturbing the privacy of the grieving person.

Restrictions on attending public meetings and mourning clothing serve as a kind of protection for the grieving person. A crepe veil will hide the sad face and tears of a woman in mourning from prying prying eyes. At the sight of mourning, a careless or heartless person will at least not be able to ignore the misfortune of another or disrespect the deceased. Thus, the whole society had to observe the rules of good manners within the framework of mourning etiquette.

The mourning period for the widow lasted 18 months. For the first six months, they were supposed to wear clothes made of crepe or henrietta fabric with a cape of crepe, collar and cuffs of white crepe. Ladies' hat - without a brim with a long veil. Beads and flowers were not allowed on hats. The lack of jewelry indicated that the funeral participant was consumed by deep grief, and not by her appearance.

Wow, gloomy one!

The widow's headdress is preferably made of white crepe. Dark gray kid gloves were worn in the early days of mourning. In the following days it was possible to switch to silk, especially in summer. After six months, the crepe garment could be replaced by a grenadine dress with discreet trim. All types of black fur and seal fur were worn during times of deep mourning. The interior trim of the family's carriage should also be black.
While etiquette books required widows and close relatives to wear black, brides and some women in mourning still wore gray or purple dresses to weddings.

After the first year of mourning, the woman received more freedom in choosing clothes. During half-mourning, instead of a crepe hat and a long heavy veil, a lighter option was allowed, for example, a silk headdress with a edging of crepe and braid. She could again wear different styles of hats. At this time, they wore a dress made of grenadine silk or cashmere with dark trim and mourning bands on the neck and sleeves. As a sign of mourning, mourning flowers were worn in the hands and on the wrists. Other colors of the toilet were allowed - gray and purple, mauve, black and white, trimmed with embroidery and beads made of black amber.

The mourning for the children lasted nine months. In the first three months, clothes were trimmed with crepe; mourning was not as deep as mourning for a husband. No one was ready to take off their mourning. However, tradition allowed friends to advise a grieving mother when it was time to change clothes for the sake of her surviving children. They are greatly affected by the fact that their mother always wears black clothes. Mothers should always remember this when they feel that the loss of a child makes their life useless and empty.

Mourning for father and mother lasted one year. For the first six months they had to wear clothes made of henrietta or serge fabric with crepe trim, at first with black tulle on the wrist and neck. The dark veil was attached to the back of the hat; it should not fall over the face, as widows wear. It must be said that modern doctors are against such a custom. They recommend pinning thin monastic veils instead of a heavy crepe veil. Fabric dyes have a detrimental effect on the sensitive area of ​​the nose and are the cause of catarrhal diseases, blindness and ocular cataracts. There are many shortcomings in the crepe veil, but this is the tradition, and no one dares to change it.

Mourning for a sister or brother, stepfather and stepmother, and grandparents was the same, but its duration was shorter. In England, such respectful mourning lasted only three months
Mourning for a deceased aunt, uncle or cousin also lasted three months. This period must end before the family goes out into the world or appears in the theater.

Poor widows could not observe all four mourning periods, because for each it was necessary to buy new clothes, and with the death of their breadwinner, many women were left penniless. If they had money, they sewed a black dress, or, as a last resort, they dyed their everyday outfit black.
Servants usually wore mourning (black livery and a mourning headband) for the head of the family, sometimes for other family members.

Funeral

Funerals in England depended on the social position occupied by the family of the deceased, as well as on the willingness to fork out money. Until the beginning of the 20th century, no savings were made on funerals. A pompous funeral emphasized the status of the family and gave the relatives of the deceased the opportunity to “show off” their neighbors. While the English peasants themselves were organizing the ceremony, their wealthy compatriots turned to the undertaker's office. The price list in such establishments was designed for people with different income levels. For £3 5s the undertakers provided the following package: a horse-drawn carriage, an unadorned coffin, but lined with cloth; coffin cover; gloves, scarves and bandages for mourners. The same amount included the services of a coachman, porters and a silent mourner. The presence of the latter gave the funeral solemnity, although his duties were simple - stand silently and with a mournful look at the entrance to the house, holding a staff with a bow in his hands. Looking at the silent mourner, passers-by were imbued with the sad atmosphere of the funeral. The mute mourner was easily identified by his top hat, from which hung a long, almost waist-length scarf - black or, in the case of children's funerals, white.

If desired and financially possible, it was possible to hire a hearse and funeral carriages to take the family to the cemetery. The horses harnessed to them were decorated with plumes of ostrich feathers. The number of mourners carrying staffs with bows or trays with ostrich feathers also depended on the client’s ability to pay. Ladies attending the funeral wore cloaks with hoods, gentlemen wore black cloaks, often rented from the undertaker, and tied a narrow black ribbon to their hat. This is what the funerals of people of middle income and above looked like.

Since Sunday was a holiday, it was not recommended to conduct funerals or dig a grave on this day. Leaving the deceased at home on Sunday was also considered undesirable, so they tried to finish the funeral before the weekend, except in cases where the death occurred on a holiday. At that time, the only consolation one could draw was from the Welsh belief that righteous people die on Sundays.

A completely different picture was observed in the families of the urban poor. Sunday is the only day off, and it was impossible to take time off from work even for such a serious occasion. So the poor people from the slums, in defiance of superstition and to the great displeasure of other townspeople, chose Sunday for funerals. Their ordeal did not end there. Death could happen suddenly, and if the family did not have enough money to bury the deceased on the first Sunday after his death, the corpse remained at home until the relatives collected the required amount. Sometimes it took several weeks to prepare for the funeral. During this time, the corpse lay in the same room in which the whole family huddled.

To learn about the original English funeral customs, you need to go to the countryside. There they did not delay the burial, although they could have postponed it for a day or two so that relatives from distant places had time to say goodbye to the deceased. Since it was believed that the body of the deceased should not be left alone for a minute, the evening before the funeral, relatives and friends held a vigil over the body. In the 19th century, this custom was practiced mainly by the Irish and Scots. It was with a mixture of indignation and admiration that middle-class Englishmen read about the swashbuckling activities of the vigils. For example, the Scots, in order not to get bored, played cards, and the coffin served as the card table. Since tears cannot satisfy hunger, the hosts brought the guests food, often alcohol. Every now and then the vigil turned into a drinking party, and the guests enjoyed it so much that they feasted for several days on end, forgetting about the sad reason for the meeting. When it became absolutely impossible to ignore the dead man - especially in the summer heat - they tried to bury him as quickly as possible in order to resume the festivities, this time in a tavern.

Funeral meal
On the day of the funeral, relatives and neighbors gathered in the house of the deceased. At the beginning of the 19th century, in some English counties, funeral home employees called guests to funerals. They never knocked on the door with their fist, only with the key they carried with them. Sometimes the local bell ringer handled the invitations. Before going to the cemetery, guests were invited to remember the deceased. The treat was washed down with dark ale with spices, and biscuits soaked in ale were left near the hives so that the bees would also remember the deceased. In Yorkshire, all guests received a round sweet pie. The exception was the funeral of persons who had an illegitimate child. It was considered inappropriate to transfer sugar and flour to remember harlots.

In more respectable families, the “funeral cake” was wrapped in writing paper and sealed with black wax, so that the guest would remember the deceased at home. The pie wrapper was decorated with "appetizing" images of coffins, skulls and crossbones, grave hoes and hourglasses. Thus, the eater did not simply absorb carbohydrates, but reflected on eternity. Before the coffin was taken out of the house, guests took a sprig of rosemary from a large bowl, which was then placed on the grave.

In Scotland, guests placed their hand on the chest of the deceased, especially if he died a violent death. Firstly, it was believed that if you touch a dead person, he will not appear in a dream. Therefore, everyone, even children, had to go through this procedure. Secondly, there was an ancient belief: if a person died a violent death, and a murderer was among the guests, the wounds would open and begin to bleed.
Like weddings, funerals in rural areas were carried out on foot.

Representatives of different religious denominations were buried in different cemeteries, although in the same cemetery there could be delimited areas where Anglicans and Catholics, Jews and Scots-nonconformists found their final refuge.

The graves were traditionally located around the church. A gravestone was erected at the burial site, on which the name and dates of life of the deceased were written. Masters often paid for the funerals of servants and bought them tombstones at their own expense. In this case, the employer’s name could also be stamped on the tombstone, and even in larger letters than the name of the deceased servant. It was customary to decorate tombstones with epitaphs, mostly sentimental.

With the rapid growth of urbanization, places in city cemeteries have become scarce. At the beginning of the 19th century, private cemeteries appeared, built with money from shareholders who expected to profit from burial fees. The cost of burial could be high, but grieving relatives were satisfied with the cleanliness and safety of the new cemeteries. Private necropolises were not tied to the church; their layout was more like parks. Planted with trees and flowers, with marble obelisks that tried to outdo each other in luxury, these cemeteries became suitable places for a family stroll on the weekend.

At the same time, the question of the burials of ordinary people remained unresolved. Unable to buy a plot in a prestigious cemetery, poor townspeople continued to bury their dead in church cemeteries. After a general inspection of cemeteries in 1830, the City Burial Act was adopted in 1852, marking the beginning of the opening of new cemeteries outside the city limits. In the 1880s, the cost of burial in a municipal cemetery varied from a pound to five pounds, depending on the "class" of the grave, i.e. its size and location. You had to pay extra for a headstone.

In order not to go broke at the funeral, poor Englishmen bought funeral insurance in advance, making weekly payments in the amount of three to ten pence. In the absence of insurance, they were ready to take any valuables to the moneylender, just to avoid the terrible fate of burial in a common grave. There is nothing more terrible and shameful in the world. The so-called "pauper's funeral" was the antithesis of the Victorian ideal of funerals. This fate was reserved for those who were buried at the expense of the parish, for example, inmates of workhouses.

It seemed as if the funeral itself had been carefully designed to humiliate the deceased and his family. The bodies were placed in crudely made coffins, which were lowered into a common grave. The prayers over them were read hastily. The most serious offense for the relatives of the deceased was the ban on the installation of a tombstone, which existed in some parishes. The common grave had to remain anonymous so that the names of the dead poor would disappear from people's memory. Such a funeral was considered such a dishonor that some families, having saved a little money, sought to have their deceased exhumed from a common grave in order to rebury him in a separate one.

The deceased should be brought into the cemetery feet first and buried with feet facing east. In Derbyshire it was believed that in this case it would be easier for the deceased to rise during the Last Judgment, when Jesus ascends the Mount of Olives in the east. In most parishes, the northern part of the cemetery was considered unsuitable for the burial of respectable Christians. Strangers, beggars, suicides, and unbaptized babies were buried there.

In Hertfordshire they believed that the devil roamed this side. This superstition is associated with the architecture of English churches, located on the east-west axis. Thus, the entrance to the cemetery was from the south, so that those entering could immediately see the graves located on the south side. The burial places on the north side were hidden from human eyes, which is why they buried there those who were better not to be remembered again. In addition, the northern side was in the shadow of the church building. Lying there after death will be chilly.

The fear of being buried alive was widespread. Stories about knocking from crypts, as well as tales of gravediggers who allegedly found skeletons twisted in strange positions, added fuel to the fire. To avoid this terrible fate, concerned citizens took action. The Reverend Richard Orme, vicar of All Saints Church in Hartford, was especially attentive, leaving detailed instructions regarding his own funeral. The restless priest was buried in an above-ground tomb, the fence around it on one side was dismantled to make it easier for the deceased to get out if he happened to come to life. A spare key to the tomb was placed in the coffin, along with a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine (in case the deceased developed an appetite).

During funerals, the church bell was rung in memory of the deceased or, according to popular belief, to drive away evil spirits from the grave. This is where the expression “for whom the bell tolls” comes from. Depending on the county, the gender of the deceased was determined by the number of bell rings. For example, in Marsham (Norfolk) a peculiar hierarchy was built: 9 calls were made for a married man, 8 times for a bachelor, 7 times for a married woman, 6 times for an old maid, 4 times for a boy and 3 times for a girl.

Part two - in the morning!

From 1837 to 1901, Queen Victoria ruled England. When her husband, Prince Albert, died, she dressed in black and declared herself in mourning... and never came out of it again. Queen Victoria never remarried, and also openly did not care about her children, leaving them completely alone. For the British it was an incredibly tragic and romantic story, so they began to admire her mourning for her beloved husband. People have always been interested in seeing what is beyond the line, and for many, death has become a source of inspiration and a standard of romantic tragedy. And since the general mood of a given time is certainly reflected in the fashion trends of that time, it is not at all surprising that people of the Victorian era began to obsessively cultivate everything related to death and mourning.

Ridiculous wills

Decorations made from the hair of the dead

Mourning rings

Funeral dresses

The Victorian era, or the era of the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901) was a strange time when some traditions were broken and others were born - strange and repulsive. Perhaps the reason was that the British were crazy about their kings, and with the death of Victoria's husband, Prince Albert in 1861, widespread, continuous mourning began in the country. In conditions of eternal grief, you begin to look at the death of a loved one from a different angle. What now terrifies and causes unpleasant twitching of the hair on the head was then not obvious, but the norm... In the 19th century, people were moved by stuffed animals, adorned themselves with the hair of the dead, and were crazy about spiritualistic seances.

Spiritualism

The Victorian era is known for the ever-increasing popularity of spiritualism, ghost stories and eyewitness accounts that could cool the soul of even the most ardent skeptics.

Christmas Eve was a traditional time for people to get together, if not for séances, then at least for stories of ghosts and the paranormal. Such evenings by the fireplace or by candlelight, when the streets are filled with thick fog, through which the light of lanterns barely breaks through, were the norm, and communication between mediums and the dead was commonplace.

Stories about spirits and ghosts were widespread in the media, and with the publication of the classic of world literature by Charles Dickens in 1843, belief in ghosts and otherworldly entities was further strengthened in the public consciousness . Periodicals increasingly began to publish stories about paranormal phenomena and seances, which freed people from the need to pass such stories by word of mouth. Ghosts in photographs became known at the end of the 19th century, long before the advent of effective hoax methods.

The greatest driver of the growth of paranormal beliefs in the Victorian era was perhaps séances. Such sessions were extremely popular, and often instead of ghosts, either dolls or people in ghost costumes made of gauze and other materials appeared before the amazed spectators.

Posthumous portraits

Until 1839, portraits were painted with a brush on canvas (or wood) - this was a long and expensive task, not accessible to everyone, but with the invention of the daguerreotype, acquiring your own portrait, or a portrait of loved ones, became accessible to almost everyone. True, the middle class often did not think about this, and grabbed their heads only after family members “played the box.”

Post-mortem portraits began to become very popular. And with the invention of the carte de visite in the middle of the century, photographs could be printed in any quantity and distributed to all close and distant relatives and friends.

Given the high infant mortality rate, postmortem photographs of infants of all ages have become especially popular. At that time, such images were not perceived as taboo, but were a kind of norm.

The idea of ​​post-mortem photographs caught on so well that it eventually reached a new level. Photographers tried to add “life” to the portraits, and corpses were photographed surrounded by family.

The deceased children had their favorite toys shoved into their hands, and their eyes were forcibly opened and propped up with something so that they would not accidentally slam shut during the slow filming process. Sometimes the photographer's students added rosy cheeks to the corpse.

Taxidermy

Another, no less strange hobby of representatives of the Victorian era was taxidermy. Everyone wanted to have a stuffed animal. Ladies decorated their hats not only with real feathers, but also with real birds (though dead ones). The most famous taxidermist was Walter Potter. He created a real museum with stuffed animals. The most visited exhibits were kittens in the form of a bride and groom.

Sad decorations

The only acceptable thing for women was to wear items made of brown coal as mourning jewelry - dark and gloomy, it was supposed to represent longing for the departed. Jewelers, it must be said, took no less money for products made from coal than for jewelry with rubies or emeralds.

This was worn during the first stage of mourning. A year and a half. On the second, the woman could afford to wear some jewelry. But with one caveat - they had to contain hair. Human. Hair from the head of the deceased.

Brooches, bracelets, rings, chains, everything was made from hair - sometimes they were included in gold or silver jewelry, sometimes the jewelry itself was made exclusively from hair cut from a corpse.

The widow was required to wear a heavy black veil that hid her face for the first three months after her husband's death. After three months, the veil was allowed to be lifted onto the hat, which, of course, significantly facilitated the movement of women in space.

Almost nothing was visible through the mourning veil. The woman wore a veil on her hat for another nine months. In total, the woman did not have the right to remove her mourning for two years. But the majority, along with the queen, preferred not to take it off for the rest of their lives.

Headless portraits

If you believe all sorts of archives, this method of photo manipulation was exactly in second place after post-mortem photography.

Posing with your head on a platter, with your mother’s head in your hands, and without a head at all was terribly fashionable, especially in England. The image was created by layering one negative on top of another while developing the photograph.