Burial - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition burial

Definition :

Burial. Burial in some part of the parish churchyard without payment is a Common Law right, but not burial in any particular part of it. In order to acquire a perfect right to be buried in a particular vault or place, a faculty must be obtained from the ordinary, as in the case of a pew; or a man may prescribe that he is occupier of an ancient messuage in a parish, and ought to have separate burial in such a vault within the church, and such prescription implies that a faculty was originally obtained. The faculty, however, fails when the family cease to be parishioners. In Bryan v. Whistler, (1828) 8 B. & C. 288, it was held that an exclusive right of burial in a vault is an easement, and therefore cannot be granted by parol or by mere writing without a deed.

Burial must not take place except after the Registrar of Births, Deaths or Marriages has issued his certificate of death or by order of a Coroner, see 16 & 17 Geo. 5, c. 48. See CORONER.

A clergyman may be prosecuted in the Ecclesiastical Court for improperly refusing to bury a dissenter or other person, for by the 68th canon 'no minister shall refuse or delay to bury any corpse that is brought to the church or churchyard (convenient warning being given him before), in such manner and form as is prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer.' See Escott v. Martin, (1841) 4 Moore, PC 104, in which a clergyman was suspended under the canon for refusing to bury a child which had been baptized by a