Cremation Society of Great Britain

[1] At the time, many proponents believed in the miasma theory, and that cremation would reduce the "bad air" that caused diseases.

[2] In 1869, the idea was presented to the Medical International Congress of Florence by Professors Coletti and Castiglioni "in the name of public health and civilization".

[3] A model of Brunetti's cremating apparatus, together with the resulting ashes, was exhibited at the Vienna Exposition in 1873 and attracted great attention[4] The Cremation Society of Great Britain was founded in 1874 by Sir Henry Thompson, a surgeon and Physician to the Queen in which capacity he served Queen Victoria; he was also to become its first president.

In it he wrote: "it was becoming a necessary sanitary precaution against the propagation of disease among a population daily growing larger in relation to the area it occupied".

The ensuing debate in the press encouraged Thompson to call a meeting of his friends at his home at 35 Wimpole Street on 13 January 1874 during which a declaration was written and signed by those present.

[6] This stated: "We, the undersigned, disapprove the present custom of burying the dead, and we desire to substitute some mode which shall rapidly resolve the body into its component elements, by a process which cannot offend the living, and shall render the remains perfectly innocuous.

Its founder Sir Henry Thompson wrote that the society was "organised expressly for the purpose of obtaining and disseminating information on the subject and for adopting the best method of performing the process, as soon as this could be determined, provided that the act was not contrary to Law".

In 1884, the Welsh Neo-Druidic priest William Price was arrested and put on trial for attempting to cremate his son's body.

Over the decades the society has assisted and advised private companies and local authorities on the building of new crematoria at the same time as lobbying government to ease the restrictions which were preventing cremation from being readily available to all.