Cemetery workers and companies connected with the functioning of cemeteries in Gdańsk in the second half of the 19th century

Abstract

The article discusses the employees of the cemetery complex created in the second half of the 19th c. at the Grand Alley in Gdańsk (Danzig), where all the most important parishes of the city had their cemeteries. The employees in question were managers, described in sources also as “gardeners” or “guardians”, designers (gardeners), gravediggers and coffin carriers. The author also presents other people and companies involved in the working of the cemetery (tombstone carvers, coffin makers, undertakers, florists) and discusses various funerary services with their prices. The most important figure was the manager, whose duty was to keep cemetery records, collect fees, tend the graves, the buildings and the greenery, and keep the cemetery tidy. His work was supervised by the parish. Gravediggers were responsible for preparing graves and transporting corpses in the case of cheap funerals. During expensive sumptuous ceremonies coffins were carried by special carriers (up to 12) or transported on hearses. Tombstone makers worked outside the cemetery; they usually assembled their products from ready-made elements. They offered iron-cast crosses and railings or carved gravestones and crosses. There were numerous advertisements of tombstone carvers and railing producers in Gdańsk press, especially the important dailies Danziger Zeitung and Danziger Neueste Nachrichten. Newspapers also advertised coffin makers and undertakers, who offered transporting corpses, decorating funeral chapels, etc. In the second half of the 19th c. cemeteries in Gdańsk worked like well-managed companies. The city had numerous firms offering funerary services. Undoubtedly, death and mourning were undergoing far-reaching commercialization.