‘A set of men who live by death’ - Undertaking before the Victorians
A talk by Death Historian Dr Dan O’Brien

We may well be familiar with the image of the Victorian undertaker, but what existed before and how did the services of the trade become established in England? Death historian Dr Dan O’Brien examines the entrepreneurial and competitive business of undertaking in pre-Victorian England drawing upon a diverse range of sources. The first undertakers established themselves in the closing decades of the seventeenth century and over the following hundred years they became an increasingly common presence in the urban management of death. Focusing on these businesses, Dan will ask simple questions with fascinating answers: What did early undertakers sell? Did they have hearses? Who were their customers? As we learn more about the early undertakers we will encounter the familiar and the unusual, as well as many interesting characters along the way.

About Dr Dan O’Brien
Dr Dan O’Brien is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath. His research focuses on the undertaking trade and their products in eighteenth century England. This has included a detailed analysis of the early trade in the west of England, with a specific focus on the prosperous settlements of Bath, Bristol and Salisbury. His research also seeks to understand how the undertakers and their goods were perceived by society, by analysing how death and dying were presented in the popular culture of the period.