The idea of paying for your funeral before your die is not a ‘novel’ idea confined to AM morning television.

In the years of the Roman Republic, funeral clubs known as ‘collegia’ were formed. Members paid a regular monthly contribution which would then pay out a sum of money on the members demise.

This payment would cover the cost of those who prepared the body (pollinctores), those who carried the coffins or corpses (vespillones), grave diggers if inhumation took place (fossores) or cremators (ustores).

There were also flautists (tibicines), horn-players (tubicines), mimes, dancers and dirge-singers (prafeficae). Mourners were also hired for several reasons. Firstly, a large number of mourners was identified with one’s popularity during their lifetime, a lengthy procession and well attended funeral was symbolic of worldly success and public respect. Secondly, it was not considered appropriate for public displays of emotion, particularly for the elite or well-to-do. Women were hired for the purpose of performing symbolic gestures of grief such as pulling their hair and beating their breast accompanied by wailing.

While there was a practical and economical purpose to the funeral club, there was also a social aspect – regular meetings took place providing a venue for comradeship as well as creating internal club hierarchies. Some slaves were known to be members which suggests that they had sufficient disposable income to pay for membership.

Membership to the funeral club even covered the possibility should a member die elsewhere other than town. In this case payment would be made to bring the body home, or if no body was available a funeral would still be held using an image of the deceased!

Below: Relief 1st century BCE found in the ancient Italian town of Amiternum depicting funeral possession with body on a bier, surrounded by family preceded by musicians.

(Image: utexas.edu)

Family photos such as this one of Willliam Salter, my great great Uncle, capture a moment in time. Photographs from this era of stoic men in uniform rarely capture the true experience of war.

William enlisted in the AIF on 4/4/1916, two years after the official declaration of war. Perhaps it was his age, he was 43 years old when war was declared, or maybe it was because he had a family of 6 to provide for, that made him wait while thousands of other men were enlisting. William was a miner, a true ‘digger’ and it was his experience that made him a valuable recruit for the 2nd Tunnelling Company of the Australian Imperial Force.

Sapper Salter would have been working on tunnels which were dug under the German front line. This strategy became an important facet of the war to break the stalemate of trench warfare.

William survived a ‘cave-in’ while at the Western Front in July 1917. In his letter to home he tells his family, ‘…the Germans blowed us in. I was 6 hours before they got me out. The doctor said very few could have stood it, what I went through’. It was fellow soldiers of his unit which dug him out – his mates. Perhaps his previous experience in the mines on the gold fields of Western Australia also served him in good stead.

William was medically discharged on 14/1/1918 – his health was never the same. He took up farming to make ends meet, but he was always a miner first, never a farmer. As many returned soldiers found, life post-war was a struggle. He passed away, at the relatively young age of 66.

Photograph 1 : William Salter (right) pre World War I, date unknown
Photograph 2: Sapper Salter c.1917