The Advance of Cremation: Wartime and Reconstruction, 1939–1952

Abstract

Wartime and post-war reconstruction had a direct effect on the popularisation of cremation with both local authorities and individual families. The cremation rate rose from 3.7% in 1939 to 9.1% in 1945 and to 17.1% in 1951. In the war, the involvement of both service personnel and civilians contributed to the increased mood of solidarity and the enhanced sense of a democratic self-identity which shaped attitudes for a more classless and socialist society after the war. Together with the prospect of a welfare state after the war’s end, this helped to cement a consensus for radical approaches to democratic social change. In this context cremation may be termed in retrospect ‘the democratic way of disposal’.