Cremation Movements

The emergence of modern cremation in the 19th century, and its flourishing in the 20th, heralded a distinctive element of social change in industrial societies. This change did not occur by accident or by any gradual shift from preexisting burial traditions, but through the campaigning of special voluntary interest groups, which possessed a variety of motivations toward social reform. The shift to cremation was strongly advocated or imposed by political agencies of state. This entry differentiates between these two categories of voluntary association and ideological fraternity on the one hand, and political agencies on the other, before concluding with an account of national and global organizations and the effect of their publications on the development of cremation.

Types of Movement

Voluntary associations typify what first comes to mind as cremation movements: groups established to promote the modern practice of burning the human corpse until ash and bone fragments remain. They have, probably, been the least known, yet ultimately, the most significant influencers of cremation practice. They came into being specifically to promote cremation through debate, conferences, journals, and political lobbying for funeral law reform. Many countries have had or still possess such cremation societies and associations.

By contrast, the ideological fraternity aspect of this type refers to Freemasonry, especially in Italy in the later 19th century, when its more general ideological-philosophical policies focused on cremation as part of an anticlerical movement. Outside this context many Masons were Christian and not hostile to religion, unlike many in the dynamic political world of mid- and late 19th-century Italy. There, Masons triggered a powerful ecclesiastical response from the Roman Catholic Church, which opposed cremation for nearly a century.

The second type of cremation movement accounts for large-scale political institutions of state, typified by China, Japan, the former USSR, and the short-lived Nazi regime of the Third Reich. Each, for quite different reasons, either encouraged or enforced cremation.

Voluntary Associations

Voluntary associations have been the most influential of all cremation movements because they identified underlying needs of particular groups in society that became increasingly appreciated and widely accepted by others. Such associations have depended for their birth upon the far-sightedness of individuals who gathered around themselves like-minded people capable of creating intelligible and persuasive programs of activity. This mix of allies has often involved both charismatic and bureaucratically informed individuals possessing extensive social and cultural influence derived from their ordinary professional, commercial, and cultural lives. In the 19th century this typically involved medical and other scientific workers, allied with social and welfare reformers, as well as literary, artistic, or philosophical thinkers. The following selected individuals, and the groups they patronized, could be much expanded for many countries.

Ferdinando Coletti (1819–1881) was an influential Italian academic, professor at Padua's ancient university, medical scientist, and regional politician; he argued the case for modern cremation as a replacement for burial from as early as 1857. Indeed Italy—whose integrated Kingdom was founded in 1861—became a focus for much cremation debate and practical activity, especially in the 1870s. The first western cremation temple was built in Milan to cremate the industrialist Alberto Keller in 1876. The same year also saw the United States gaining its initial cremation facility. Many cremation societies were established across the world from the 1870s, including those of Great Britain and Holland in 1874, Milan in 1875, France 1880, Denmark 1881, Turin 1883, and Vienna 1885. Medical doctors, scientists, and [Page 238]literary and philosophically minded individuals often spearheaded these societies and pressed for the legalization of cremation in their respective countries, as well as arguing for the building of crematorium facilities. In Australia, for example, Dr. James Neild, an academic doctor in Melbourne, presented a paper titled “On the Advantages of Burning the Dead” to the Royal Society of Victoria in 1873.

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