Whitechapel’s Dead Body Train

Rumour has it that there was once a train tunnel that went from the Royal London Hospital and had a connection at Whitechapel Tube Station. The train was used by the dead primarily, it ran through a tunnel that is not used now and it has been bricked up.

Charles Dickens’ poverty and disease riddled depictions of the city made a colourful picture of the overflowing morgues. G A Walker (1839) also goes into the reports about over-crowding and indeed does mention the Whitechapel burial grounds, he describes the terrible smell from the vaults below that had been left in a dilapidated state. The cemetery is described as being in a densely populated area of London, the general neighbourhood being seen as disgusting (and lets not forget these were the haunting grounds for Jack the Ripper later on) and that the area is in itself is seen by Walker as some infested place with the living just as foul as the dead.

Like something from a horror film he presents a cemetery so badly kept and overflowing that the bones are amassed as one, fluids and foul liquids are all around. He goes on to say how the remains are treated with ‘ruthless indifference’ and the corpses and their remnants are exhumed by the shovel, when a new burial is due the cemetery is so badly over-crowded and unkempt it’s impossible not to come across other burials, some recent, in the needs to find a space for yet another corpse.

In digging a foundation for a new wall, on the eastern side of the church, the workmen penetrated through a mass of human bones eight or ten feet in thickness ; these bones were thrown out, and for some time lay exposed to public view, scattered over the ground in a loathsome humid state – G A Walker on Whitechapel Church.

Under Whitechapel station it is said that the empty rooms beneath were used as a temporary morgue, this is often seen to help continue the story about the train. Clearly Whitechapel sounds like it needed a church to ferry the dead but was there one?

Well some say that the blocked up tunnel was a pedestrian tunnel but that makes little sense, you wanted people on trains not wasting their silly time doing all that healthy walking, no sir! The hospital is said to have had the tunnel to connect it, whilst nearby it seems that making a connecting tunnel for workers would be a little nonsensical as it was very close by not to mention the cost and logistics as the hospital would need steps to access it, and patients would not use it if ill.

A great link!

Another quick read link

National Geographic’s article on Necropolis Line

London’s Necropolis Train

Warning – fairly lengthy post for me!

London was and remains a large scale part of English history, past and future. During the pre-Victorian and through the Victorian period finding a place to bury the dead was no easy task. London’s capital for instance had doubled in a short space, with it came the dead and more need to inter them.

Finding a cemetery that could be used for the purpose could be just as difficult as picking a first home. Cemetery space was at a prime, people needed the space and bodies were left in terrible states around the capital city. Regularly graves were desecrated and re-used, disinterred bones were left scattered across grounds. It wasn’t just cemeteries either but the results of this terrible lack of organisation meant that there was a great deal of risk for disease with the material from decomposing bodies entering drinking wells and springs.

1848-1849 saw a cholera outbreak that killed nearly 15,000 Londoners and made it very obvious that there was a drastic need to sort the situation out. A brilliant description of some of the problems was documented by G A Walker in his Gatherings from Graveyards, I have been very lucky to obtain a copy and if I get chance will scan some pages in at later date.

In 1849 Sir Richard Broun came up with an answer, he proposed buying a large area of land to build a massive cemetery. The 2,000 acre plot would be his Necropolis and at a distance of 25 miles from London posed little to no risk of seeing the same issue arise. He proposed that the railway line from Waterloo to Southampton could offer a way to transport coffins and mourners alike…

The idea of a railway link to rural cemeteries had been thought about before he presented his ideas but not everyone seemed convinced, the clamour and bustle of a train would detract from the dignified Christian funeral. Also would it not be somewhat offensive to have a body in a coffin on a train where the family and friends were already suffering, and then treat like some form of conveyor  belt affair?

The idea of rail travel was still a new thing anyway, but Waterloo line was completed 1848 and the first Necropolis Station came along six years after that. In June 1852 an Act of Parliament was passed which created The London Necropolis and National Mausoleum Company, it was later shortened to The London Necropolis Company. London & South Western Railway were the partner’s and they estimated £40,000 a year from it. It was decided however that the trains used would have to be a separate service, it was not a good idea to put a funeral party near mainstream passenger services and potentially drive away both.

There was another concern about how the varying religions and classes would be addressed using the service and so there were two stations. One served the conformist area on the sunny south side and the other served the non-conformists on the chilly north side. The class tickets also came into play, the dead were also split into the classes too.

Brookwood Cemetery grounds were consecrated 7th November 1854, six days later the world’s first funeral train was ready to go. The York Street terminus was restricting its passenger services, and if the company was going to expand it needed Waterloo and to demolish York Street terminus. A long period of negotiations went on and the London Necropolis was persuaded to give up it’s York Street post for a replacement 999-year lease, low rent and compensation along with a new supply train with return tickets for the mourners to use on the SWR more expensive trains at their own low cost.

The Act of Parliament meant the tickets prices for the Funerary side were fixed until 1939, Golfer’s going to nearby West Hill Golf Club would take advantage by dressing up as mourners. The remains of a rough footpath are still seen at the cemetery, it’s suggested the cheapskate golfers caused it. So far the history of the Funeral Rail service looked promising however in October 1900 the Necropolis Railway dropped Sunday services from it’s timetable and the trains went into decline until they ran once or twice a week. Finally the new motor hearse posed a new threat but this did not cause the end of its days, the German Luftwaffe did.

Bombs, April 16th 1941 was one of the worst nights of the London Blitz. The Necropolis train was berthed and did not escape, the area was levelled and only the platforms remained. It would have been too expensive it replace it and although the Necropolis Service ended in 1941 there is some evidence coffins were conveyed to Brookwood by rail into the 1950’s.