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ABOUT | HISTORY
LAFD HISTORY

​The British Undertakers Association, a trade association, was founded in 1905, within which London members formed

the London Division. Many of the firms involved are still members, although not all remain under the same family control.

 

In December 1935, the BUA was renamed the National Association of Funeral Directors, with its London Division becoming the London Association of Funeral Directors. 

 

From the outset, London Division was particularly active, with much early discussion on the simpler ‘New Funeral’. An early initiative, to demonstrate a funeral could be obtained from any Member at a fair and reasonable rate, was the publication of a maximum funeral cost. In 1923, the revised agreed rate for a full basic Elm coffin funeral with “machine coach or car and pair” was £8.0s.0d. Interestingly, the same price pertained 12 years later, at the time of the Association’s name change.​

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LAFD became the only part of the National Association to negotiate with the Union and be an official Employers Association. Indeed it was a London member who, feeling strongly that the whole trade would benefit from providing better rewards and conditions for their staff, assisted in the formation of the Union itself. Typical working hours at that time were based on a 6 ½ working day week!

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Banquet

LAFD ANNUAL BANQUET 

By Brian Parsons

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The London Association’s annual banquet is the longest-running social function for funeral directors in this country.

Over the years this convivial gathering has always attracted a large number of guests who have enjoyed generous hospitality

in opulent surroundings. This short history tells its story.

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THE FIRST BANQUET

The London Centre of the British Undertakers’ Association (as the LAFD was then called) held its first dinner on 6 May 1907 at the Holborn Viaduct hotel. In the unfortunate absence due to illness of the London President, James Hurry, the chair was occupied by Alderman Herbert Hollick Kenyon of JH Kenyon. Frederick Field was the vice chairman. The President of the BUA, Henry Sherry was in attendance and after the toasts he spoke of the achievements of the Association since its founding in June 1905. The gathering was then entertained to a programme of music performed by youthful members of the Waters’ family. Charles W Waters was an undertaker and coffin manufacturer in Bow, east London and the small instrumental ensemble (two violins, two violas, cornet and piano) was conducted by none other than his daughter, Miss Elsie Waters. Then aged thirteen, in years to come Elsie and her sister, Doris, would form a duo that by the 1920s had acquired celebrity status in the music halls. Their brother Jack, who later changed his surname to Warner, became a familiar face as the policeman in the 1960s TV series, Dixon of Dock Green.

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The names of the 36 attending the dinner form a roll call of luminaries from the London funeral trade; many of the names can still be found today. Messrs Nodes, Sherry, Kenyon, Bond, Kellaway, France and Crook and were present along with others whose businesses have been consigned to history. Tickets were 6 shillings or 11 shillings and sixpence for a double ticket. Following its success, the London Centre decided to make the banquet an annual occasion. In 1908 under the presidency of Frederick Field the event was once again held at the Holborn Viaduct Hotel with music provided by Mr EW Waters’ Bijou Band. The evening concluded with the singing of Auld Land Syne.

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In 1910 the Holborn Restaurant became the venue for the annual dinner. 100 members of the Centre gathered on 31 March and were serenaded by the Waters’ family in addition to The Merrymakers Quartette. Reputed to be the largest and also the last of the grand Edwardian restaurant blocks, diners found themselves in palatial surroundings at the Holborn Restaurant. Built between 1883-5 it contained twenty-one banqueting rooms, fourteen restaurants, numerous private dining rooms and three Masonic temples (with pipe organs). The sumptuous interior was decorated with marble from the Pyrenees, enamelled mosaic, majolica and stunning chandeliers. The Annual Dinner continued at this location until 1920 when allegiance was shifted to the nearby Connaught Rooms. Sadly, the Holborn Restaurant was demolished in 1955. An image included here of the 1913 dinner only hints at the splendid interior of the restaurant. On that occasion guests enjoyed:

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Advertisement for the first dinner in 1907

  • Oysters

  • Clear Deslignae

  • Velours Cream

  • Boiled Salmon and Hollandaise Sauce

  • Cucumber Salad

  • Whitebait

  • Vol-au-Vent Toulouse

  • Mutton Cutlets Alscaienne

  • French Beans

  • Roast Chicken with watercress

  • Salad

  • Diplomatic Pudding

  • Comtesee Marie Bombe

  • Wafers, Dessert, Coffee

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The Waters' family orchestra with Elsie Water (centre)

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The BUA Dinner in 1913 at the Holborn Restaurant

This was the last social event before the Great War and it would be February 1919 before a ‘London “Victory” Dinner’ was held with FE Smith of the London Necropolis Company as the president of the London Centre. Charles W Tait, the BUA president and well over 100 guests were present when Harold Kenyon proposed a toast to, “The Imperial Forces.” A hat collection for BUA funds raised £38 6s before a Miss Dalby sang a selection of songs including, “Tommy comes marching home.”

 

For the next twenty years the banquet continued annually with attendances increasing each year. In January 1924 some 300 were present at the Hotel Cecil; a similar number attended four years later at the Hotel Victoria on Northumberland Avenue. HN Allen of Farebrother’s in Kingston was the London president with TL Pakeman of Bristol the BUA president. Entertainment was provided by Robert Easton who sang Mendelssohn’s “I am a Roamer” and a sea shanty before dancing to Sidney Jerome’s band and cabaret by Gordon Marsh and the Marshmallow Girls.

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 ‘AN AMUSING INCIDENT’

At this dinner an amusing incident occurred, as The Undertakers’ Journal reported:

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General Sir and Lady Newton were announced and hospitably received by Mr and Mrs Allen. They then proceeded to the dining hall but failed to trace their names at any of the tables. Upon further inquiry it was discovered that the function at which they were both expected was at a different hotel altogether. Both entered into the spirit of the thing heartily and were not in any way disconcerted at having been received at a gathering of undertakers.

TO PARK LANE

From 1928 the annual dinner remained at the Hotel Victoria until a move was made to the venue that is now recognised as ‘home’ – the Park Lane Hotel. The event was first held here on 9 March 1934. Once again, over 300 joined the London president W Oliver Nodes for the customary reception, culinary extravaganza, toasts, speeches and entertainment; on this occasion the latter was provided by Jack Upson’s Band and Harold Lawrence with his Silver Wings Cabaret.

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Construction of the Park Lane Hotel commenced in 1925 and was concluded two years later. It was the first hotel in London with a bathroom in every room. In Sir Nikolaus Pevsner’s architectural guides the ballroom is described as ‘…one of London’s best Art Deco spaces. Silver, mauve and pink colours; mushroom columns; scrolling and scalloped motifs. Decoration includes paintings…of nymphs and wild beasts.’ Park Lane Hotel has been the home of the banquet for most of the subsequent period..

 

In 1935 The Undertakers’ Journal included a photograph of those gathered for the dinner on the 18 January. On this occasion Mr H Leverton was toastmaster. Regrettably, no pictures survive of the entertainers: Fragson and his cigarettes, and Avant Bros, the comedy acrobats. It would be the last time the event was held under the auspices of the London Centre of the BUA as, at the conference at Southend in June of that year, the name National Association of Funeral Directors was adopted and the ‘London Association of Funeral Directors’ was born.

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However, once again war interrupted the annual gathering. After the banquet on 9 March 1939 the event was not resumed until February 1947, when Robert Ebbutt was the president. On this occasion cabaret turns were provided by Two Maroons (footwork funsters), Stella Scott and her banjo, and Fabian Foot (baritone) and music by Jack Upson.

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By 1950 attendances were back to their pre-war numbers. 350 people joined London president W Durham Kenyon along with a fellow Londoner as national president, James James-Crook, while in 1953, the president’s wife, Mrs Harold Rivett encouraged some 300 diners to contribute to the National Flood Relief Fund, responding to events of  January that year.  Deep snow greeted guests as they made their way to Park Lane for the 1958 dinner with Oliver Nodes as London president. The attendance record reached an all-time high in 1967 when 400 ‘…enjoyed a wonderful evening of good fellowship and good fun liberally laced with the generous hospitality for which the London Association is well-known.’

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Over a hundred years on, the annual dinner (now described as the ‘Annual Banquet and Ball’) continues to occupy an important place in the Association’s calendar. It is always well supported by the London membership along with members of the NAFD and guests from all over the country.

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The first dinner was held at the Park Lane Hotel in 1934.

This image shows the assembled four years later. 

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Top table in 1948. The LAFD president was Robert Ebbutt

and the NAFD president was Tom Mcintyre.

FUNERAL SERVICE IN LONDON 

By Brian Parsons

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London occupies an important place in the history of funeral service. The College of Arms, that managed funerals of the nobility until the eighteenth century still has its home in the City. Not far away the first commercial undertaker set up in business near the Old Bailey, around 1765. Most of the key funeral-related organisations can trace their origins to the capital; the Marylebone-based physician Sir Henry Thompson founded the Cremation Society of England in 1874, while the British Undertakers’ Association, the British Embalmers’ Society and the British Institute of Embalmers were all inaugurated here. Over the years, hundreds of firms of funeral directors have served families and London has provided the backdrop for many high profile funerals. This short history provides a glimpse into London’s fascinating funeral heritage.

 

THE LONDON ASSOCIATION OF FUNERAL DIRECTORS

 Whilst the British Institute of Undertakers can be identified as the first ‘modern’ trade association, it had only a short life in the closing years of the nineteenth century. In 1904 the London Funeral Furnishers’ Association (LFFA) was founded, followed a year later by the British Undertakers’ Association (BUA) with Henry Sherry from Marylebone as its first president. The capital’s undertakers were represented by the London Division of the BUA. In December 1935, the BUA was renamed the National Association of Funeral Directors, with its London Division becoming the London Association of Funeral Directors (LAFD).

 

The first president of the LFFA was William Knox, an undertaker from the Old Kent Road area, with Henry Kellaway of Dulwich as the secretary. Over the years the LAFD and its predecessors have represented the interests of its membership through negotiating with trade unions, central government and local authorities. It also has provided educational initiatives such as a work experience scheme and, more recently, the Certificate in Funeral Arranging and Administration. A feature has been the annual banquet and ball; with the exception of the two World Wars, this popular event has been held since 1907.

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The chain of office was designed by Toye & Co in 1923; at the annual dinner that year Alderman Harold Kenyon used it to invest the incoming president, C Milne of Fulham.

Funeral

COFFINS

Provision of the coffin is central to the work of the funeral director. For many years coffins were hand crafted using elm and oak, but  greater use of technology has been adopted the twentieth century and today the majority of coffins are machine constructed. Two factors have particularly impacted upon coffins. First, cremation authorities stipulated that easily combustible wood be used, along with coffin furnishings made from non-metallic materials. Secondly, the ravages of Dutch elm disease required the industry to seek alternatives, such as imported woods and non-solid boards like chipboard or medium-density fibreboard that could be covered in foil, veneer or cloth. Today a wide range of coffins and caskets are offered, including cardboard, wicker, bamboo and those decorated with images.

CARE OF THE DECEASED

An important event occurred in 1900, when two American professors visited London to give funeral directors instruction in preservation techniques. After their departure, London-based pioneers such as Arthur Dyer, Albert Cottridge, George Lear and W Oliver Nodes actively promoted embalming by offering tuition to funeral directors. The latter was the first president of the British Institute of Embalmers that was founded in 1927, while George Lear ran both a trade embalming service and school.

 

In the early years most embalmments took place at home. However, during the interwar years death increasingly occurred in hospital and this encouraged the trend for the body to be transported to a chapel of rest to await the funeral. As funeral directors gained more responsibility for the decease, they provided fully equipped embalming theatres and mortuaries with refrigerated accommodation.

 

 

TRANSPORT

Due to their distance from urban areas and the impracticability of walking funerals, the horse drawn hearse was developed during the mid-nineteenth century to transport the coffin to the new private cemeteries located at places such as Kensal Green, Highgate and Nunhead. Most undertakers did not possess their own stable and hired from a carriagemaster, such as Henry Smith in Battersea or Dottridge Brothers near the City. Undertakers also made good use of the extensive rail network. to move coffins quickly and relatively inexpensively around the country. The service that ran from the London Necropolis Company’s private station at Waterloo to Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey was perhaps the most novel use of the railway. The coffin and mourners were conveyed directly into the cemetery using a branch line.

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The motor hearse first made an appearance on London’s streets around 1906. Initially used for transporting coffins in a closed compartment, by the 1920s they were regularly appearing on funerals. Both forms of transport continued until the late 1940s, before the horse drawn hearse finally disappeared. However, their absence was only brief and much prominence was given to their return during the funerals of some notorious east end gangsters. The first motor hearses were, literally, the coffin compartment of a horse hearse secured to the chassis. As time has progressed the makes of funeral vehicles have largely reflected those adopted for domestic use: in the 1920s to 1940s Daimler, Austin and Rolls Royce, while Humber and Princess followed in the 1950s. A decade on Ford’s and Vauxhall’s were popular, while more recently Volvos, Jaguars and Mercedes have appeared. The Daimler DS 420 was held by many funeral directors to be the all-time classic funeral vehicle.

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A FEW FAMOUS FUNERALS

Over the years, funeral directors in the capital have contributed to some of the most high profile funerals to have ever taken place in this country. The text accompanying these seven images outlines the involvement of some of the capital’s funeral directors.