Bizarre Inventions from the Victorian Era

SeaBreeze

SeaBreeze

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The Victorian era began in 1837, when Queen Victoria ascended to the British throne, and lasted until 1901, when she died. Like every other period in the history of England, the era saw its fair share of weird inventions.


 

I don't know about the veracity of that particular story, but "safety coffins" were definitely an item in the day. I'm a graveyard enthusiast and never pass up a chance to visit a historic cemetery. I participate in a very active cemetery forum and hear stories like this all the time.
 

Cemetery forum? That's an actual thing?

What in the world do you discuss on such a forum - tombstone rubbings? The latest in entrenchment technology?
 
jujube said:
I don't know about the veracity of that particular story, but "safety coffins" were definitely an item in the day. I'm a graveyard enthusiast and never pass up a chance to visit a historic cemetery. I participate in a very active cemetery forum and hear stories like this all the time.
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I have to confess- I had no idea that there is a community of folks that have an interest in graveyards. That being said, the couple of cemeteries I visited in NC while visiting kin ...I found..."magical" or maybe "intriguing" sounds more for real. At the time I was an[active] genealogy buff, and so learning more of that side of the family, and seeing the graves of known family members, as well as headstones of ancestors I had read about was just 'solid gold'.
 
The idea of leaving a body to decay was not to ensure that the person was really dead, but to make the corpse worthless to 'body snatchers'. Surgeons of the day needed a supply of fresh corpses to disect for teaching purposes and a decayed corpse was no use. Body snatchers would dig up fresh graves and exhume bodies which they would sell to teaching hospitals.

Safety coffin... I can't think they would be much use as there would not be enough room to use tools to dig your way out. There's a lot of myth and legend surrounding Victorian burials, mostly untrue or at least very doubtful.

JuJube... here's a pic for you.. It's a gravestone from an old Scottish church - note the symbolism of the carvings.

gravestone.jpg
 
Oh, yes, there are a lot of us who love to wander in cemeteries and talk about our finds. We post pictures of unusual gravestones, funny names, interesting epitaphs. I've been fascinated by graveyards since I was a child. In our travels, I always hit as many historic graveyards as possible.
 
Ah yes the age of invention, always intrigued me, more so when I was fascinated by Steampunk, even made a costume and went to a convention. This picture when I was doing research on the Victorian era fashion still gives me the hebee jebees. it was a horrid thought of invention in my opinion..

117726977728713316_NjuYbOdE_c.jpg
I still cannot believe someone thought it was a good idea ..
 
jujube said:
I don't know about the veracity of that particular story, but "safety coffins" were definitely an item in the day. I'm a graveyard enthusiast and never pass up a chance to visit a historic cemetery. I participate in a very active cemetery forum and hear stories like this all the time.
Click to expand...

I know this is an older post from you, but you may be interested in reading up on a local old cemetary here. Mount Hope. It is the final resting place for Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglas, members of the Ragu family (of the pasta sauce) and the Lomb family (Baush & Lomb.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Hope_Cemetery_(Rochester)
 
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