Mortlake Crematorium Board

The Cremation Service

It was on a bitterly cold Wednesday in January 1939 - heavy snow had caused the reception marquee to collapse - that the Right Honourable Lord Horder, the King’s physician, declared the crematorium open. The building, designed by Douglas Barton, an employee of the former Hammersmith Metropolitan Borough Council, was built at a cost of £27,000.00. In his congratulatory words to the Board Members present Lord Horder said,

‘You seem to have eliminated the sombreness of atmosphere which sometimes shrouds buildings such as these’.

Mortlake Crematorium was the first joint board to be established under its own Act of Parliament. An extract reads :

‘An Act to constitute a joint board comprising representatives of the Hammersmith Borough Council and the Corporations of Acton, Barnes and Richmond to authorise the Board to provide and maintain a crematorium and for other purposes.’ [31st July 1936.]