The Nosey Genealogist

My family history research in the county seems to indicate that there are limited number of nonconformist chapel burial records surviving for Devon. Enshrined in the law of the land I believe, is the concept that people of any denomination may be interred inside their parish churchyard. If the deceased was a nonconformist then the family members were not allowed to have the Church of England funeral service at the graveside.

In my family some of the Thorns seemed to have left the Church of England and become Presbyterian. By the time, however, they died they were buried in the Longcross cemetery above Dartmouth in the area reserved for St Saviour’s Parish. Does this mean that they returned to the Church of England or not? I am not entirely sure as I think the area that they were laid to rest in was not consecrated ground. This would point to them not being C of E.

The whole subject of nonconformity has led me to discover this about how officialdom treated the issue. Although none of my line seemed to have been Councillors, or the like, the following is still an interesting insight into how the other Christian denominations were viewed.  Members of the “establishment” e.g. local councillors as well as some officials weren’t allowed to have on their robes of office, or mayoral chains etc., while attending the funeral of a nonconformist councillor. If the official took no notice of the rules then they would face a penalty of £100 plus they would be barred from public office for the rest of their lives.

Regarding being laid to rest alongside those of the Church of England, many nonconformists decided on an alternative solution because they did not want to be buried within C of E owned land. Quakers particularly opened their own burial grounds and each marker stone was quite plain and modest often displaying simply the initials associated with the departed. A few chapels for example Independents, Methodists as well as Baptists developed their particular burial grounds and additionally in some country districts burial grounds were established for all non conformists and not necessarily restricted to one religious belief.

From 1880, however, a change to the law by an act of parliament meant that on being interred within a Church of England parish graveyard that the family members were able to choose a minister of their own faith to preside over the burial service. This begun to make the use of distinct nonconformist burial grounds less favoured due to the fact that in some instances they ended up being some miles at a distance from a village or neighbourhood. In 1853 following the considerable overcrowding involving graveyards and burial grounds after the cholera deaths and large number of deaths in Victorian England the parliament approved an additional law shutting numerous churchyards and burial grounds. This led to quite a few neighbourhoods and bigger parishes creating what most of us know as cemeteries. I wish you good luck in your family tree investigations if, like me, you have some nonconformist in your line and hopefully very few brick walls in your family history research to slow you down.

Ideally those with local information for the area in which you are looking might be able to locate a few of those older burial grounds. But the overall scarcity of registers regarding the subject matter might most likely make it difficult if you want to look for names.