Royal ceremonial and funerals--Banting family.

containing carefully arranged manuscript notes giving detailed summaries of the ceremonials attendant on 60 funerals, mostly royal, in some cases with additional eyewitness notes in purple ink, 55 pages, large folio, paper wrappers, 1869, lacking lower wrapper



[with:] about 50 further manuscript items relating to royal funerals including drawings of canopies for the funeral of the Duke of Gloucester signed by  J.W. Banting, plans of St Anne's Church for the funeral of the Duchess of Cambridge (1889) with related notes and memoranda ("Foreman & his 8 men will be for some time in the Vault from which they must on no account go out until dismissed by W.B. ... they must preserve the most rigid silence, they must not talk except by whispers, not cough or make any other sound..."), samples of fittings for coffins, miscellaneous manuscript notes of royal funeral costs, memoranda and notes of instructions, letters and telegrams relating to the organisation of funerals, lists of mourners, business cards, and invitations; 13 rubbings and prints of casket plaques including those of George IV (1830), Queen Adelaide (1849), Prince Albert (1861), and Edward VII (1910); 54 printed orders of service, orders of proceeding and ceremonials, for royal and other funerals, including the Duke of Sussex (1843), Queen Adelaide, the Duke of Wellington, Prince Albert, King Georg V of Hanover (1878), the Duke of Albany (1884), the Duchess of Cambridge (1889), Field Marshal Lord Napier (1890), the Duke of Clarence (1892), Francis of Teck (1910), and Edward VII, some with manuscript notes, instructions and corrections; engravings depicting the funeral procession of the Duke of York (1827), Queen Caroline (1821),and the Duke of Wellington; printed matter such as press cuttings and illustrated magazines on the funeral of the Prince Imperial (1879); most items mounted on large folio sheets, disbound, significant wear and tear to some items, dust staining

A fascinating collection detailing the pomp of death in the nineteenth century. The Banting family were undertakers to the British royal family for four generations, holding this position over a period of more than a century (c.1811-1932), during which time these royal ceremonials reached their apogee.