As recently as 40 years ago, many parents of stillborn babies and babies who died shortly after birth were not told what happened to their child’s body. A new mass grave has been found by a woman looking for her two brothers…reports Asian Lite News
More than 300 bodies have been discovered in a mass grave in Oldham, with the majority belonging to babies and children.
The 12x12ft grave in Royton Cemetery was found by a woman looking for her brothers, with one stillborn and the other dying within five hours in 1962.
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According to councillors Maggie Hurley and Jade Hughes, who revealed the discovery in a statement, 146 of the bodies were stillborn babies and 128 babies and young children.
Until the mid-1980s, stillborn babes were often taken from families with no consultation with their parents, who would not know where they were taken.
“It’s a stark injustice that parents were denied the fundamental right to bury their babies, a right that should be inherent and unquestionable,” the councillors said. “This situation should stir our collective sense of fairness and empathy.”
The woman’s find left her “in tears”, they added, and “feeling a profound sense of loss and injustice”. She needed emotional and practical help to cope with the trauma of her discovery, they said.
The councillors also said this grave is not the only one of its kind in Royton Cemetery, with another three of a similar size.
Of the 303 bodies found, they added there were only 147 names online, with 156 names missing – though they say this has been addressed. “We also asked about the other cemeteries across the borough, and we were informed that there is missing information for these cemeteries as well,” they said.
“The staff are currently in the process of rectifying this by cross-referencing all available records and updating the online database.”
According to stillbirth and neonatal death charity Sands, parents of stillborn babies or those dying shortly after birth were not consulted about funeral arrangements.
“Before then, parents were not usually involved and many were not told what happened to their baby’s body,” the charity said, adding this changed midway through the 1980s.
“Some parents who have tried to trace the grave or cremation record of a baby who died some time ago have been successful.”
In many cases, they added, stillborn babies were buried in a shared grave with other babies.
The Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management said in a journal in 2015 many of these babies would be buried in an unconsecrated area as the child would not have been baptised – and the parents “urged to forget”.
Sands states there was a “general belief, both amongst professionals and society as a whole, that it was best to carry on as though nothing had happened”.
“You may have been discouraged from talking about or remembering your baby and discouraged from expressing grief,” they added. The councillors said the woman set out to look for her brothers after reading the story of Gina Jacobs, who in 2022 found her son, who was stillborn in 1969, in a mass grave at a cemetery in Wirral.
On Thursday night, Jacobs referred to the woman’s discovery in a Facebook group, commenting she is “working tirelessly to get justice and recognition for our babies and born sleeping siblings”.
‘Never forgotten’
The statement read: “How many babies are laying in Royton Cemetery in mass graves, their identities unknown to their grieving relatives? It’s a stark injustice that parents were denied the fundamental right to bury their babies, a right that should be inherent and unquestionable. This situation should stir our collective sense of fairness and empathy. We cannot change what has happened, but we can ensure that the babies born sleeping are named, recognised, and never forgotten.”
A motion, due to be discussed at a council meeting on 11 September, has called for the council to erect a memorial to the buried children. It also suggests records and documents about the burials should be made more accessible and digitalised.
The adults in the graves are presumed to be what are known as “pauper’s burials”, for individuals whose families could not afford to pay for a grave. The Royton grave’s discovery follows another mass grave being found in Wirral earlier this year, where resident Gina Jacobs, 79, found her stillborn son after a 53-year search.
Over the past 20 years, mass graves containing the remains of stillborn babies have been discovered in Lancashire, Devon, Middlesbrough and Huddersfield.
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