State funerals in the United Kingdom

[1] A state funeral may also be held to honour a highly distinguished figure following the approval of the monarch and Parliament (of the expenditure of public funds).

A gun carriage has been used to transport the coffin between locations since Queen Victoria's funeral (1901); it is also accompanied by a procession of military bands and detachments along with mourners and other officials.

In many respects the obsequies of Queen Victoria in 1901 set the tone for the modern state funeral, with her desire to be buried 'as a soldier's daughter' (the use of a gun carriage to transport the coffin, for example, dates from this time).

Another distinguishing feature was occasioned by the fact that Queen Elizabeth had died at Balmoral in Scotland, which allowed an additional procession, service and Lying-in-State to be held in Edinburgh, prior to the coffin being brought to London.

Churchill's body was taken by gun carriage from Westminster Hall (where it had lain in state) to St Paul's Cathedral for the funeral, which was said at that time to have been the largest in world history, bringing together representatives from 112 nations.

[17] Afterwards, his body was taken by river (on board the Port of London Authority launch Havengore) to Waterloo for the railway journey to Bladon for burial.

[5] The funeral of Queen Elizabeth II was also held in Westminster Abbey; it was followed on the same day by a committal service in St George's Chapel, Windsor.

The burial took place privately that same evening (attended by immediate family only) in the adjacent King George VI Memorial Chapel.

[19] Allowing the body of a monarch or nobleman to lie in state (for the public to pay their respects) is a long-established custom dating back many centuries, and is analogous to the once widespread practice of laying out a corpse for mourners at their home prior to a funeral.

The Exchequer customarily provided all those taking part in the procession (from 'poor men' and servants to nobles and royalty) with lengths of black cloth for their mourning garb.

Those of the highest rank in society were distinguished by having a canopy carried over their coffin, which remained held in place for the duration of the funeral service.

From the fourteenth century onwards it became customary for a lifelike wooden effigy of the deceased person to be carried on or near the coffin in royal and noble funeral processions; previously, the embalmed body itself would probably have been on view.

[4] A contingent of 266 poor women walked at the head of the funeral procession for Elizabeth I, which made its way from Whitehall Palace to Westminster Abbey in 1603, and the Queen's High Almoner preached at the service.

The procession, which numbered over a thousand participants in all, included peers and peeresses and their children on the one hand, marshalled according to rank, and a multitude of servants on the other, from the 'children of the scullery' and the 'yeomen of the boiling house' to the late Queen's sewers and the Maids of Honour of her Privy Chamber.

[26] The Great Officers of State were also in attendance, along with the chief justices, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London and numerous clerks and officials.

At the funeral of William IV, for example, the procession from the lying in state set off at 8 pm; the Brigade of Guards lined the processional route (as they still do today), and one in four of them held a burning torch.

As today, those bearing arms (swords or rifles), whether lining the route or marching in the procession, carried or held them reversed as a sign of mourning.

Non-royal state funerals in the 19th century were very similar to those for monarchs, even down to a herald reading the style and titles of the deceased, and leading members of their household carrying white staves and breaking them at the graveside.

On the train's arrival in Windsor the horses that were formed up at the station broke away from the gun carriage, necessitating the recruitment of a nearby contingent of sailors to pull the coffin.

[29] The rare sight of a state funeral cortège travelling by ship provided a striking spectacle: Victoria's body was carried on board HMY Alberta from Cowes to Gosport, with a suite of yachts following conveying the new king, Edward VII, and other mourners.

Victoria's body remained on board ship overnight (with Royal Marines keeping vigil) before being conveyed by gun carriage to the railway station the following day for the train journey to London.

(The use of Westminster Hall for this purpose immediately proved popular, with over a quarter of a million people taking the opportunity to file past the coffin in 1910;[30] its use as the primary venue for lyings-in-state is now well-entrenched.)

[34] The main procession took two hours to get from Westminster Hall to Paddington station, where the mourners boarded the royal train, which took them (along with the King's body) to Windsor for the funeral.

The visual distinction usually referred to is that in a state funeral, the gun carriage bearing the coffin is drawn by sailors from the Royal Navy rather than horses.

The deaths of Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness were privately commemorated, reflecting political and religious sensitivities in Northern Ireland.

[50] His funeral at Glasgow Cathedral was televised and attended by a large number of prominent UK political figures, as well as the Irish Taoiseach and The Prince of Wales.