Death and disposal of dead
Records relating to death and disposal of the dead in Scottish archives are used by a wide variety of researchers, including genealogists, social historians, demographers, and medical historians. Registration of death by civil authorities began in Scotland in 1855 and since then it has been mandatory for deaths of individuals to be registered with civil registrars. Prior to 1855, apart from the Church, very few corporate bodies were interested in recording deaths per se, and records of burials or some other aspect of death, such as succession to property after death, are more common. Sudden deaths in Scotland are investigated by procurators fiscal (local state-funded prosecutors) and since 1895 sheriff courts have carried out fatal accident inquiries in certain cases.
Disposal of the dead
Burial was the main method of disposal of the dead in Scotland until the 20th century when cremation became an accepted alternative. Gravestones and monuments were erected on many Scottish burial grounds.
Body-snatching was a relatively brief phenomenon in the late-18th and early-19th centuries, effectively stamped out by the Anatomy Act of 1832. However, concerns over this risk led to the development of mortsafes.
Succession to property after death
Property in Scotland is divided into heritable property (land, buildings etc) and movable property (cash, clothing, goods etc). Succession to, and disposal of, heritable and movable property in Scotland was quite strictly controlled until fairly recent times.
Other related Knowledge Base entries
Death registers of Catholic churches
Records of municipal and private cemeteries
Records of undertakers and monumental masons
Procurators fiscal and Fatal Accident Inquiries
Bibliography
Adams, Norman, Dead and Buried: The Horrible History of Body Snatching (Aberdeen University Press, 1972)
Bailey, James Blake, The Diary of a Resurrectionist, 1811-1812 (London, 1896)
Bennet, Margaret, Scottish Customs from the Cradle to the Grave (Birlinn, 2004)
Black, Jimmy and Michael T. R. B. Turnbull, The Glasgow Graveyard Guide revised edition (In Pinn, 2011)
Gordon, Anne, Death is for the Living (Harris, 1984)
Love, Dane, Scottish Kirkyards (Robert Hale Ltd, 1989)
Martin, Andrew (compiler), Scottish Endings: writings on death (National Museums of Scotland, 1996)
Ross, Ian and Carol Urquhart, ‘Body Snatching in Nineteenth Century Britain: from exhumation to murder’ in British Journal of Law and Society, 6(1) (1979) pp. 108-18
Sinclair, Cecil, Jock Tamsons Bairns: a history of the records of the GROS (HMSO, 2000).
Turnbull, Michael T. R. B., The Edinburgh Graveyard Guide (Saint Andrew Press, 1991)
Willsher, Betty, Understanding Scottish graveyards revised edition (National Museums of Scotland, 2005)
Links
There are illustrations of many types of gravestones and mortsafes on Canmore, <https://canmore.org.uk/> [accessed 21 May 2021] which is part of Historic Environment Scotland.
Where should I look for information about, or records of, mortcloths?
References to payments for mortcloths (along with payments for coffins or digging the grave of named persons may appear in kirk session minutes and accounts, heritors’ minutes and accounts, and old parish registers. By recording a payment for a mortcloth, these may provide the approximate date of death for the deceased.
There are occasional references to mortcloths in kirk session minutes. Kirk session minutes have been digitised and are available to browse free of charge on the ScotlandsPeople website (there are fees for downloading). The National Records of Scotland (NRS) online catalogue shows the location of the original records, including those held by local archives services, along with any access conditions. Several hours might be required to read through the minutes, looking for references to mortcloths.
Heritors’ minutes and accounts may also contain records of mortcloths. Almost all surviving heritors’ minutes are held by the NRS. Although heritors’ minutes and accounts are not usually as voluminous as kirk session minutes, they also require a lot of research time, in searching through unindexed volumes.
Prior to 1855 the principal source of information about deaths in Scotland is the collection of Old Parish Registers (OPRs) of baptisms, marriages and burials held by NRS. For more information about OPRs and how to search for these online, go to the ScotlandsPeople website.
What was a mortcloth?
A mortcloth (from the Latin word mors, mortis, meaning ‘death’) was a form of pall, i.e. a large cloth (usually black) thrown over a coffin or corpse at a funeral. Mortcloths were kept by kirk sessions (church courts in each parish). Some were more elaborate than others, and a wealthier parish might have more than one (including a small one for corpses of children). They were hired, usually by the family or next of kin of the deceased, to cover the coffin (if a coffin could be afforded), or the corpse itself (if a coffin could not be afforded).
As the kirk session was responsible for poor relief until 1845, it might allow use of a mortcloth without charge, if the deceased or his family were paupers. For example an act of the kirk session of Penicuik (National Records of Scotland, reference GD18/3980) records that a velvet mortcloth was purchased in 1670 for £192 and 19 shillings Scots, and that those who contributed to the cost were allowed use of it for free. Otherwise it was hired out for 2 shillings and 6 pence Scots for burials in the parish, and 40 shillings Scots for burials outwith the parish.
In the 18th and 19th centuries some people formed or joined friendly societies, paying subscriptions which paid for future funeral expenses. For example, the rules of the Haddington Mortcloth Society, 1833, survive in the National Records of Scotland (reference GD302/142).
References to payments for mortcloths (along with payments for coffins or digging the grave of named persons may appear in kirk session minutes and accounts, heritors’ minutes and accounts, and old parish registers. By recording a payment for a mortcloth, these may provide the approximate date of death for the deceased.
What was a mortsafe?
A mortsafe was an iron grill or cage placed over a grave until decomposition started and the body was in no danger of being stolen by resurrectionists.
What was a morthouse or a watch box?
A morthouse (from the Latin word mors, mortis, meaning ‘death’) or watch box was a structure erected for the temporary security of the dead, until decomposition started and the body was in no danger of being stolen by resurrectionists. In 1818 an undertaker, Edward Bridgman, patented a wrought-iron coffin, to deter bodysnatchers. However, it met with controversy, as people were worried that iron caskets would block burial plots.
Where should I look for information about, or records of, mortsafes, morthouses or watch boxes?
Recourse should first be made to published parish histories and the best place to look for these is normally the local studies library for the area concerned. Historic Environment Scotland has information about buildings, monuments and other structures in over 1,000 graveyards in Scotland, some of which is accessible on Canmore, <https://canmore.org.uk/> [accessed 26 April 2024].
The best place to look for references to mortsafes in original records would be either in kirk session records or heritors records, although in both cases references are rare.
Minute books survive for most kirk sessions. There are occasional references to mortsafes in kirk session minutes. Kirk session minutes have been digitised and are available to browse free of charge on the ScotlandsPeople website (there are fees for downloading). The National Records of Scotland online catalogue shows the location of the original records, including those held by local archives services, along with any access conditions. Several hours might be required to read through the minutes, looking for references to mortsafes, morthouses and watch boxes.
Heritors’ minutes and accounts may also contain records of mortsafes, morthouses and watch boxes. Almost all surviving heritors’ minutes are held by the NRS. Although heritors’ minutes and accounts are not usually as voluminous as kirk session minutes, they also require a lot of research time, in searching through unindexed volumes.
Where should I look for information about, or records of, churchyard watching societies?
Look first in published parish histories. The best place to look for these is normally the local studies library for the area concerned. The best place to look for references to churchyard watching societies in original records would be either in kirk session records, heritors’ records, and private records, although in each of these references are few and far between.
There are occasional references to watching societies in kirk session minutes. Kirk session minutes have been digitised and are available to browse free of charge on the ScotlandsPeople website (there are fees for downloading). The National Records of Scotland (NRS) online catalogue shows the location of the original records, including those held by local archives services, along with any access conditions. Several hours might be required to read through the minutes, looking for references to watching societies.
Heritors’ minutes and accounts may also contain records of watching societies. For example, the records of the Heritors of Liberton parish contain an advertisement for a watchman (ref: HR153/1/1). Almost all surviving heritors’ minutes are held by the NRS. Although heritors’ minutes and accounts are not usually as voluminous as kirk session minutes, they also require a lot of research time, in searching through unindexed volumes.
There is a small chance that information about watching societies in a particular area may survive among the records of families, estates and legal firms from that area deposited at the NRS or at local authority or university archives. For example in a bundle of 39 items in the Strathern & Blair WS collection in the NRS (ref: GD.314/114) there is material on the Traquair Churchyard Waiting Society, later the Traquair Watch House Society 1821-1879. Advice should be sought from staff at the NRS and local archives as to which collections should be checked.
Do records of coroners’ inquests survive in Scotland?
The Scottish system of investigating sudden deaths differs from the system of coroner’s inquests in England and Wales. Sudden deaths in Scotland are investigated by procurators fiscal (local state-funded prosecutors). The findings of investigations by the local procurator fiscal are recorded in the Register of Corrected Entries maintained by the National Records of Scotland (NRS), but few other records of the Procurator Fiscal service are deposited in Scottish archives. NRS hold records of Fatal Accident Inquiries held by sheriff courts (since 1895). There are fewer sources for fatal accidents before 1895. For more information about these, and for further details about Fatal Accident Inquiries, sheriff court records and the records of procurators fiscal go to the National Records of Scotland website. <https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/> [accessed 24 April 2024] and see also the Knowledge Base entry on Procurators Fiscal records and Fatal Accident Inquiries.
What are bills of mortality?
Bills of mortality are abstracts from death registers showing the numbers of people who have died in a place, parish, burgh, island, country, or some other part of the country, during a given year or some other period of time. Examples survive from the 17th century onwards. The form that these take and the amount of information within any bill of mortality depended on the purposes of the bill and the practice of the body or individual who compiled it. Some bills of mortality are purely statistical and were devised and published to provide information on the progress of certain diseases. Some parishes in Scotland kept separate bills of mortality in the form of a list of those who died in the parish in any given year, giving the date of death, the name and sometimes the designation and age of each of the deceased. They survive (for some parishes) among old parish registers (OPRs), in some cases as an alternative to registers of death or burial. Prior to 1855 the principal source of information about deaths in Scotland is the collection of OPRs of baptisms, marriages and burials held by National Records of Scotland. For more information about OPRs and how to search for these online, go to the ScotlandsPeople website. <https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/> [accessed 24 April 2024]