The History of Water Cremation
The History of Water Cremation
Funeral traditions have changed before
Water cremation can seem like a completely new idea.
But the history of funerals in Britain tells us something important:
the way we care for people after death has never been completely fixed.
Burial was once virtually universal.
Cremation was once controversial.
Natural burial emerged much more recently.
Today, water cremation is prompting another conversation about what a funeral can be.
Understanding that history helps place this new choice in context.
Burial: Britain’s longstanding tradition
For much of British history, burial was the normal way of caring for the dead.
The deceased was placed in a grave and allowed to decompose naturally.
Religious belief played an important part in this tradition, particularly within Christianity and other Abrahamic religions, but burial also provided a practical way of separating the dead from the world of the living.
The Durham University research describes burial as Britain’s most longstanding method of caring for the deceased and notes that it remained overwhelmingly dominant until the twentieth century.
For generations, anything different could have seemed extraordinary.
That makes the history of cremation particularly revealing.
Cremation was once the new idea
Cremation has ancient origins.
The practice was known in Greek and Roman societies and has long held religious significance within traditions including Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism.
Yet in Christian Europe it largely disappeared as burial became dominant.
By the nineteenth century, cremation would have appeared unfamiliar — and to some people deeply objectionable.
The situation began to change during the Victorian era.
1874: The Cremation Society is founded
A significant moment came in 1874.
Sir Henry Thompson, surgeon to Queen Victoria, helped establish what became the Cremation Society of Great Britain.
He had seen Professor Brunetti’s cremation equipment at the Vienna Exposition in 1873 and subsequently became an advocate for cremation in Britain.
The Cremation Society began the organised promotion and public education necessary to introduce the unfamiliar practice to British society.
This is an important parallel with water cremation.
Technological change alone was not enough.
People had to understand what cremation was, why it might be needed and whether it could provide a respectful alternative to burial.
Dr William Price and a turning point for cremation
One of the extraordinary episodes in British cremation history occurred in 1884.
Dr William Price was prosecuted after attempting to cremate the body of his infant son in Wales.
The court determined that cremating a body was not itself a criminal act, provided it did not create a public nuisance.
The judgement became an important milestone in the development of modern cremation in Britain.
The Cremation Society subsequently established a crematorium at Woking, where the first official modern cremation took place in 1885.
The Cremation Act 1902 later provided a statutory framework regulating the practice.
What had begun as a controversial innovation was becoming an established funeral choice.
Why did cremation become popular?
Cremation did not become popular simply because the technology existed.
Social conditions changed.
Concerns arose about:
public health;
sanitation;
the availability of burial land;
crowded cemeteries;
and the cost of funerals.
Cremation offered a practical response to some of those problems.
But acceptance took decades.
New crematoria needed to be built.
The law had to develop.
Religious attitudes had to change.
Most importantly, the public had to become comfortable with something that previous generations had regarded as unusual.
Eventually it happened.
Burial remained Britain’s dominant choice until 1968, when the rate of cremation overtook burial for the first time.
A radical innovation had become normal.
Natural burial introduces another choice
Funeral innovation did not end with cremation.
During the early 1990s, natural burial began developing in Britain.
Instead of conventional cemetery practices, natural burial generally emphasised biodegradable coffins or shrouds, reduced use of permanent memorials and burial within more natural landscapes.
Its growth reflected increasing environmental awareness.
This was significant because it showed that families were again willing to consider alternatives to established funeral practices.
The question was no longer simply:
Burial or cremation?
New possibilities were beginning to emerge.
Where does water cremation come from?
The scientific process behind water cremation is alkaline hydrolysis.
It was not originally developed for funerals.
According to the history reviewed in Robinson’s paper, alkaline hydrolysis was patented in the United States in 1888 by Amos Herbert Hobson, initially in connection with processing animal remains.
During the twentieth century the technique was developed further, including applications involving animal remains in medical and research settings.
Its application to human bodies came considerably later.
From scientific process to funeral choice
The development of modern single-person alkaline hydrolysis systems suitable for humans accelerated in the early twenty-first century.
The paper notes that a commercial single-body alkaline hydrolysis system was operating at the Mayo Clinic in the United States by 2005.
Commercial funeral use followed in the United States in 2011, including installations in Ohio and Florida.
This marked an important transition.
Alkaline hydrolysis was moving from a specialist scientific process towards becoming a genuine funeral option.
What exactly is water cremation?
Water cremation uses the process of alkaline hydrolysis.
The deceased is placed within a specially designed vessel together with water and alkaline compounds.
Controlled temperature and, depending upon the system, pressure accelerate the hydrolysis process associated with natural decomposition.
The result is mineral bone remains and a liquid containing the organic components broken down by the process.
The mineral remains can then be dried and prepared before being returned to the family.
The outcome therefore has something familiar about it.
Families can receive mineral remains after the process, much as families receive ashes following flame cremation.
But the method is fundamentally different.
Water replaces flame.
Why has water cremation emerged now?
Every major change in funeral practice develops within its social context.
In the nineteenth century, the arguments surrounding cremation included sanitation, health and crowded burial grounds.
In the twenty-first century, environmental concerns have become increasingly prominent.
Climate change.
Energy use.
Carbon emissions.
Air quality.
Land availability.
Sustainable consumption.
All of these have changed the way people think about their environmental impact.
It is therefore perhaps unsurprising that people are beginning to ask whether their environmental choices should extend to what happens after death.
Robinson’s research presents water cremation within precisely this historical context: another funeral innovation emerging as society’s priorities change.
The Cremation Society anticipated further change
There is a fascinating historical connection between the development of cremation and water cremation.
When the Cremation Society was established in 1874, its founders did not necessarily regard cremation as the final development in funeral practice.
Their declaration essentially supported cremation until a better method might be devised.
More than a century later, the Society amended its objectives to include investigating methods of caring for the deceased that might prove superior to cremation.
Robinson’s research notes that resomation was specifically among the technologies that prompted this interest.
The organisation that once helped Britain understand cremation was therefore itself considering what might come after it.
Public understanding matters
History also provides a warning.
Cremation did not become accepted overnight.
People had legitimate questions.
Was it respectful?
Was it safe?
Was it legal?
Would religions accept it?
What happened to the remains?
Could families still hold a proper funeral?
Many of the questions now being asked about water cremation are remarkably similar.
Research into its introduction therefore identifies public understanding and education as central to wider acceptance.
That is one of the reasons Aquatorium® exists.
Not simply to introduce a different technology, but to explain it clearly.
Another chapter in the history of funerals
Burial did not disappear when cremation arrived.
Cremation did not disappear when natural burial developed.
And water cremation does not need to replace either.
The important change is choice.
Future generations may look back at today’s discussion of water cremation in much the same way we now look back at Victorian debates surrounding cremation.
What appears unfamiliar today may eventually become another understood and accepted way to say goodbye.
Water, not flame.
A different process.
The same opportunity to remember, gather and say goodbye.
[Discover How Water Cremation Works]
Continue exploring
[What Is Water Cremation?]
[Environmental Benefits]
[Water Cremation and Religion]
[Water Cremation vs Traditional Cremation]
[Is Water Cremation Legal in the UK?]
Research source
These three pages are based principally on:
Robinson, Georgina M. (2021), “Dying to Go Green: The Introduction of Resomation in the United Kingdom”, Religions, 12, 97.
The paper was produced by a researcher in Durham University’s Department of Theology and Religion and covers the history of funeral practices in Britain, alkaline hydrolysis, environmental evidence, regulation and potential religious responses.