ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the modern, developed Western cemetery from an historical perspective, presenting a brief overview of major evolutionary influences on cemetery environment. The modern cemetery concept has emerged over the past 200 or so years, with distinct variations reflecting cultural diversity between various countries, provinces, and localities. R. A. Etlin observes that Western attitudes to death and the place of the cemetery have changed considerably over recent centuries. A new wooded garden Cimetière du Pere-Lachaise was established in 1804 and is generally credited with starting the rural cemetery movement subsequently popularized throughout the United States of America. Railway funerals were first introduced in England in 1854 with the opening of a large, state-run cemetery in Woking, and the idea spread as far as Australia, where the first such railway connection was made to Sydney’s Rookwood cemetery in 1867.
