George Alfred Walker was a doctor who worked in London’s Drury Lane in the 1830s. Walker’s Gatherings from Graveyards, published in 1839, was particularly important in promoting the cause of burial reform.
Gatherings from Graveyards followed in an extended tradition of burial reform publications. This tradition had begun on the continent and was influenced by the Enlightenment which sought rational responses to social problems. Throughout Europe, massive population growth had overtaken local churchyard provision. At this time, it was believed that bad smells – miasmas – caused disease. The gases emitted from decomposing bodies was regarded as being particularly poisonous.
Burial reformers across Europe wrote treaties to promote ‘extra-mural interment’, or burial away from populous neighbourhoods. These texts often followed the same pattern, including a section on the history of burial in Classical Greek and Roman times, a section outlining the science of burial reform and an extended description of local burial conditions.
