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1. After the passing of this Act any person having the charge of or being responsible for the burial of a deceased person may give 24hrs notice in writing endorsed on the outside ‘Notice of Burial,’ to or leave at the usual place of abode of the rector, vicar, or other incumbent, or i his absence the officiating minister in charge of any parish, or ecclesiastical district or place or any person appointed by him to receive such notice, that it is intended that such deceased person shall be buried within the churchyard or graveyard of such parish or ecclesiastical district without the service prescribed by law for the burial of the dead according to the rites of the Church of England, and after receiving such notice no rector, vicar, incumbent, or officiating minister shall be liable to any censure or penalty, ecclesiastical or civil, for permitting any such burial as aforesaid.  The word ‘graveyard’ in this Act shall include any consecrated burial ground or cemetery, or consecrated part of a burial-ground or cemetery vested in any burial board, or provided under any Act relating to the burial of the dead, in which the parishioners or inhabitants of any parish or ecclesiastical district have rights of burial; and in the case of any such burial ground or cemetery, if a chaplain is appointed to perform the burial service of the Church of England therein, such Chaplain shall be deemed to be the incumbent or officiating minister, to whom notice is to be given under this Act; and such notice as aforesaid shall also be given to the clerk of the burial board, if any, in whom any such burial ground or cemetery may be vested.

2. Such notice, in the case of any poor person, deceased, whom the guardians of any parish or union are required or authorised by law to bury, may be given to the rector, vicar, or other incumbent in manner aforesaid, and also the master of any workhouse in which such poor person may have died, or otherwise to the said guardians, by the husband, wife or next of kin of such poor person, who, for the purposes of this Act, shall be deemed to be the person having the charge of the burial of such deceased poor person; and in any such case it shall be the duty of the said guardians to permit the body of such deceased person to be buried in the manner provided by this Act.

3. Such notice shall state the time at which such burial is proposed to take place and in case the time so named be inconvenient on account of some other service having been, previously to the receipt of such notice, appointed to take place in such churchyard or graveyard, or the church or chapel connected therewith, the person receiving the notice shall, unless some other day or time shall be mutually arranged within 18hrs from the time of receiving such notice, signify in writing, to be delivered to or left at the usual place of abode of the person from whom such notice has been received, at which hour of the day names in the notice such burial to take place, and it shall take place, at the hour so appointed or mutually arranged and in other respects in accordance with the notice; Provided that, unless it shall be otherwise mutually arranged, the time of such burial shall be between the hours of 10 o’clock in the forenoon and six o’clock in the afternoon if the burial be between  the 1st day of April and the first day of October and between the hours of 10 o’clock in the forenoon and three o’clock in the afternoon if the burial be between the 1st day of October and the 1st day of April.

4. When no such intimation of change of hour is sent to the person from whom the notice has been received, the burial shall take place in accordance with and at the time specified in such notice.

5. All regulations as to the position and making of the grave which would be in force in such churchyard or graveyard in the case of persons interred therein with the service of the Church of England shall be in force as to the burials under this Act; and any person who, if the burial had taken place with the service of the Church of England, would have been entitled by law to receive any fee, shall be entitled, in case of a burial under this Act, to receive the like fee in respect thereof.

6. At any burial under this Act all persons shall have free access to the churchyard or graveyard in which the same shall take place. The burial may take place, at the option of the person having the charge of or being responsible for the same, either without any religious service, or with such Christian and orderly religious service at the grave as such person shall think fit; and any person or persons who shall be there unto invited, or being responsible for such burial, may conduct such service or take part in any religious act thereat.

7. All burials under this Act, whether with or without a religious service, shall be conducted in a decent and orderly manner; and every person guilty of any riotous, violent or indecent behaviour at any burial under this Act, or wilfully obstructing such burial or any such service as aforesaid thereat, or who shall, in any such churchyard or graveyard as aforesaid, deliver any address, not being part of or incidental to a religious service permitted by this Act and not otherwise permitted by this Act and not otherwise permitted by this Act and not otherwise permitted by any lawful authority, or who shall, under colour or any religious service or otherwise, in any such churchyard or graveyard, wilfully endeavour to bring into contempt or obloquy the Christian religion, or the belief or worship of any church or denomination of Christians, or the members or any minister of any such church or denominations or any other person shall be guilty of a misdemeanour.

8. Nothing in this Act shall Authorise the burial of any person in any place where such person would have had no right of interment if this Act had not passed.

9. When any burial has taken place under this Act the person having the charge of or being responsible for such burial shall on the day thereof, or the next day thereafter, transmit a certificate of such burial  in the form or to the effect of schedule (A.) annexed to this Act, to the rector, vicar, incumbent  or other officiating minister in charge of the parish or district in which the churchyard or graveyard is situate or to which it belongs, or in the case of any burial ground or cemetery vested in any burial board to the person required by law to keep the register of burials in such burial ground or cemetery, who shall thereupon enter such burials in the burial ground or cemetery, and such entry shall form part thereof. Ant person who shall wilfully make any false statement in such certificate and any rector, vicar, or minister or other such person aforesaid receiving such certificate, who shall refuse or neglect duly to enter such burial in such register as aforesaid shall be guilty of a misdemeanour.

10. No minister in holy orders of the Church of England shall be subjected to any censure or penalty for officiating with the service prescribed by law for the burial of the dead according to the rites of the said Church in any unconsecrated burial ground or cemetery or part of a burial ground or cemetery in any case in which he might have lawfully need the same service, if such burial ground or cemetery or part of a burial ground or cemetery had been consecrated.

11. And wheras the archbishop, bishops and clergy of the province of Canterbury in convocation assembled in obedience to her Majesty’s Royal License and Letter of Business, bearing date respectively the 4th and 6th July, in the 34th year of her Majesty’s Reign, did on 31st July 1879, agree (among matters by the said letter of business referred to them) upon certain recommendations concerning the office of the Church of England for the burial of the dead, proposed by them to be embodied in certain altered and additional rubrics in the form set forth in schedule (B.) to this Act annexed and which recommendations were by them duly submitted to her Majesty, and whereas the same recommendations (except that numbered 2 in the schedule hereto) have also been agreed to and submitted to her province of York, in Convocation assembled, in obedience to her Majesty’s Royal License and Letter of Business in like manner addressed to them. It is hereby enacted that, from and after the passing of this Act, no minister in holy orders of the Church of England shall be liable to any censure or penalty, ecclesiastical or civil, for any act done or omitted to be done by him in or concerning the burial of any deceased person in any churchyard, graveyard or other pace, provided that such act or omission would have been authorised by the recommendations set forth in the said schedule (B.) to this Act, if the same had been embodied as rubics in the office of the Church of England for the burial of the dead, or any of them.

12. This Act shall not apply to Scotland or to Ireland.

13. This Act may be cited as the Burial Laws Amendment Act 1880.                                                                                 

SCHEDULES TO WHICH THIS ACT REFERS:

Schedule (A) I ___, of ___, the person having the charge of (or being responsible for) the burial of the deceased do hereby certify that on the day of _____,A.B. of ____aged____, was buried in the churchyard (or graveyard) of the parish (or District) of ____. To the rector (or, as the case may be) of .........................

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