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34
NATIONAL ASSISTANCE ACT, 1948.
Section 47—Removal to suitable premises of persons in need of
care and attention.
No cases were dealt with under this section during the year.
Section 50—Burial and Cremation of the Dead.
During the year arrangements were made for the carrying out
of nine burials under this Section.
Some Extracts from the Report of the Council's
Delegates, Councillor H. E. Martin (Chairman,
Public Health Committee) and Mr. G. F. Leserve.
During the past twenty-two years the amount of land estimated
to have been appropriated by local authorities for cemetery purposes
has increased from 16,000 to 25,000 acres. During the same period
the average loss to the local rates for each interment had increased
from 18s. 9d. to £4 17s. 10d. despite the fact that charges made by
the burial authorities for their services had increased by approximately
100 per cent, since 1928.
The present three methods of control and administration
(single authority, joint burial committee, joint crematorium board)
are unsatisfactory in the case of, say, under 50,000 potential
population. It was suggested therefore that the Minister should
be approached with a view to promoting a General Powers Bill,
by which local authorities could form Joint Crematorium Boards
without the necessity for each to be an existing burial authority
or having to go to the trouble of promoting a special Parliamentary
Bill for the purpose.
Centrally placed chapels of rest are essential in all large towns :
and "public readings" or "mass burials" should be abolished.
There was a striking increase in the number and proportion
of cremations in Great Britain, as the following figures show:—
CONFERENCE OF BURIAL AND CREMATION
AUTHORITIES.
Cremation
Cremations Deaths Percentage
1925 2,270 539,000 0.4
1935 9,614 552,800 1.7
1945 43,000 544,600 8.0
1950 89,000 590,000 15.0