Report of the Interdepartmental Committee appointed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department.

  • Great Britain. Cremation Committee
Date:
[1950]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Interdepartmental Committee appointed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Regulation 13 permits an application as well as other formalities to be dispensed with for the cremation of a deceased person buried for not less than one year, subject to such conditions as may be imposed in the exhuma- tion licence. Regulation 14 permits the Medical Referee, if satisfied as to the cause of death, to dispense also with the application and with the requirements of certain Regulations (4 to 9 inclusive, and 12) and authorise the cremation of a person dying of a specified infectious disease either on board ship or in certain publicly provided hospitals and places of reception. Recommended modification of Regulation 14 of the Cremation (England) Regulations 60. No modification of Regulation 12 or 13 was recommended by any witness; in our opinion, each of these Regulations serves a very useful purpose, and we recommend that they should be continued. It was suggested to us, however, that Regulation 14 of the Cremation (England) Regulations should conform generally to Regulation 15 of the Cremation (Scotland) Regulations, which makes similar provision (with the addition of anthrax and small-pox to the list of specified diseases) on application by, or with the consent of, the local Public Health authority, and the place of death is not restricted to hospitals etc., as in the English Regulation. As pointed out by some witnesses, death from specified diseases on an incoming air liner would thus be covered. We agree with the proposal generally, and recommend its adoption. PART IX—MISCELLANEOUS Unidentified human remains 61. Human remains which have not been identified may not be cremated (Regulation 5). Witnesses drew attention to the fact that remains may be unidentifiable when found, e.g. bodies washed up from the sea, and suggested that in such cases local authorities might be given power to have the remains cremated. ‘This, however, is a class of case in which investigation may on occasion be specially called for, on suspicion that death has been due to foul play, and we therefore consider that the substance of Regulation 5 should remain. Post-mortem examinations in a hospital 62. It was represented to us that on occasion the burning of a part or parts of human remains within the precincts of a hospital has caused difficulty to Coroners, but no general difficulty in practice has been reported to us, and we think the matter can be left to the discretion of the hospital authorities. Preservation of documents at crematoria 63. Some witnesses expressed the view that the requirement in Regula- tion 20 that applications, certificates, etc., shall be kept at least fifteen years was unnecessarily long. We agree, and recommend that this period be reduced to not less than five years. Fees for medical certification 64. Under the Act of 1902 there is a requirement that charges or fees demanded by the burial authority for cremation in their crematorium must be approved ; but there is no statutory authority enabling regulations to be made prescribing the fees to be charged for medical certification by the medical attendant or by the confirmatory medical practitioner. It was alleged by some witnesses that the fees at present being charged for the cremation
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