Cast Iron Memories: Production and distribution of cast iron grave markers in Great Britain

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "The Living and the Dead: New Interpretations of Above- and Below-Ground Cultural Historical Archaeology", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The production of cast iron grave markers commences in the 17th century in England, but becomes much more common in the later 19th and early 20th centuries. This paper reveals some of the contents of a newly-accessed archive of cast iron grave marker records compiled by Tony and Mary Yoward in the 1980s and 1990s, now preserved at the Ironbridge Gorge archives. The paper concentrates on contrasting the large-scale production and distribution of some foundries such as Etna (Glasgow) and Haden (Warminster) with more local production. Also the range of types is briefly outlined, revealing the ways in which cast iron could both mimic memorial forms in stone but also provide other shapes well suited to cast iron as a material. This paper combines mortuary archaeology with industrial archaeology and reveals a category of monument that would have been a common choice but which has largely disappeared.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Living and the Dead: New Interpretations of Above- and Below-Ground Cultural Historical Archaeology   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025

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Contact(s): Nicole Haddow