Ashes of man born in Victorian era still unclaimed
BBCThe ashes of a man born in Victorian times are among an estimated 300,000 unclaimed across the UK, with funeral directors legally obliged to hold on to them until families come forward.
Alexander Anderson died in 1956 at the age of 88 in Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire.
He was cremated in Canley, Coventry, but no relatives turned up to collect his ashes.
Funeral director Darryl Smith, from Heart of England Co-op Funerals in the Midlands, said: "It's really sad but we don't know what the family circumstances are."
He said Mr Anderson's ashes would stay with the firm indefinitely, under the current legislation, unless a family member gave permission for them to be scattered.
"We're talking about somebody that was born in 1868. What family are left now to be reunited with him?"
"Often the cremated remains that are in our care are quite old and it might be that the person that made the arrangement has died themselves," Mr Smith added.
A Law Commission review is expected to report back to the government later this year, including on the matter of who owns the ashes.
The commission has acknowledged the practical difficulties arising from storing ashes and that funeral homes are not a suitable final resting place.
Much of the UK's funeral legislation dates back to Victorian times and the National Association of Funeral Director (NAFD) has called for clarity on the issue.
"The funeral directors feel an obligation to care for the remains as they would do for the deceased person before they were cremated," said Rachel Bradbourne, from the association.
"Each set represents a life lived. We feel the remains should be treated in a dignified fashion and that includes a final resting place."
The Heart of England Co-op Funerals firm has some 300 unclaimed urns stored at a secure site in Northamptonshire, with more recent remains kept at individual branches, like its one in Coventry.
"In some cases, we even have a whole family with us - their cremated remains. And now there's nobody left to make those arrangements," Mr Smith said.
Those of Mr Anderson, however, are the oldest.
The year he died, Britain's first nuclear power station opened at Windscale, the Suez Crisis changed geopolitics for good and Elvis Presley had a hit with Heartbreak Hotel.
Mr Smith said his firm had joined joined the Ashes Register, used by people seeking the location of a family member's final resting place.
He said he believed it was never a family's intention to leave a loved one's ashes unclaimed.
"I don't think that enters into their heads," he said.
"But I think life just goes on and they get on with being busy again and it gets pushed to the back of their agenda and sometimes they might even forget."
He added there were occasions when a husband's remains went into storage, with the intention of scattering them later along with his wife's ashes, but for whatever reason that failed to happen.
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