A visit to the oldest undertakers in London, who have been in operation since the Battle of Trafalgar.
‘There’s a lot that can be blamed on David Bowie.’ Tom France speaks with an accent so distinctly Lahn-dan that I am absolutely prepared to believe him on this. But Tom doesn’t detail the other things that might be blamed on Bowie. While those rumours about underage groupies might be on his agenda, Tom is interested in only one area of Bowie’s cultural legacy: the no-frills funeral.
Tom has a declared interest in this. He is the last scion of the France family, who still operate A. France & Son at 45 Lamb’s Conduit Street, the oldest family-run undertakers in the capital. They have historically been very much a ‘with frills’ company. They have provided funeral care with class and discretion for celebrities and royalty, heroes and villains, as well as for generations of Londoners.
Their reputation was really first made back in 1805. Despite being named after the country that killed him, the original Mr France was tasked with organising the funeral of Horatio, Lord Nelson, after his death in battle. ‘It was like being asked to organise the funeral of Taylor Swift now,’ Tom says.
Nelson’s funeral involved three days of lying in state, a maritime procession down the Thames and then a cortège through the City of London. Rooms along the route were let for the equivalent of £2,300 today. Even the casket was complex, with each panel of the coffin painted to depict a different naval battle. After pulling off the funeral of the Taylor Swift of Regency Britain, almost everything must be a doddle.
Yet, there seemed to be a moment where that legacy of knowledge and preparation was going to disappear forever. The ‘no-frills’ funerals fashion swept the nation after Bowie exited this mortal plane of sex-goddery and chose simply to go straight in the oven at the crematorium, without even a CD of Starman blasting out of a boombox at the back for company. Others followed suit, and soon the public were being flogged ‘no-frills’ funerals at a rate of knots. Leading the charge were funeral directors, who could make what amounted to a nearly 100% profit on such events.
Not so at A. France & Son. As Tom says, ‘People have begun to realise that mourning matters – we often get a call the day before asking if a load more people can come after all.’ I had noticed something similar in my day job. I saw things from a distinctly clerical or, perhaps, romantic point of view. The horrors and isolation of COVID, the images of mourners being rugby tackled by officious council employees for hugging at a crematorium.
‘A priest chats to an undertaker’ might sound like the start of a dirty joke, but it – by which I mean dealing with dead people – provides a shared area of experience which eases the conversation. The last of the Frances is very easy to chat to, casual, friendly, amusing. People probably don’t expect undertakers to be like that. But then they probably don’t expect priests to be either.
I stupidly ask Tom how does being ‘the oldest’ affect business? He pauses before replying: ‘Well, 300 years means we do know what we’re doing.’ Everything is still done by pen and paper. ‘It’s long-winded, but it works.’ Alongside Nelson’s funeral notes, the office still has multiple ancient invoices, including some for beer given to gravediggers in Paris when they repatriated a group of French soldiers after the First World War.
The insistence on paper records was the legacy of ‘the old man’, Tom’s grandfather. Bernard ‘Bunny’ France had wanted to be a Roman Catholic priest, but the death of his father one New Year’s Eve meant that he suddenly found himself running the show, something he did until his death aged 92. The boy who wanted to become a priest ended up burying five cardinal archbishops of Westminster.
The family are still sometimes involved. ‘Dad helps out occasionally to stop him winding up mum in retirement,’ but otherwise Tom is the last France left, giving up a career as a chef to join the company. As our chat ebbs to a natural close, I ask gently if he felt pressured to do it.
‘Sort of,’ he replies, ‘I didn’t feel I had to do it but…’
‘But 300 years is a long time?’ I offer.
‘Yeah.’
For all the weight of legacy, what is interesting about the undertaking business today is how much ‘tradition’ is innovation. All the lavish Cockney details – the Frisian horses, the black plumes, the carriages – were brought in by Stan Harris at T Cribb & Sons back in the 1980s.
Still, the family link matters, especially in those communities where, well, family still matters. ‘We have a lot of Italians: more burial than crem.’ It used to be that the coffins were then sent to Italy where they’d be buried in vaults. ‘They still go in vaults,’ Tom says, ‘but they’re in Finchley, not Bologna.’ Mayfair clientele want ‘simple coffins, no limousines.’ The posh dead aren’t quite as good for business. Tom elucidates a simple equation: ‘The less you spend the grander you are.’
Cremation is more widespread despite both Catholic and Anglican objections to the practice in the past. Famously, when Bishop Charles Gore chose to be cremated in the 1930s, his friend Lord Halifax was so outraged by his chosen method of bodily disposal that he lamented that Gore was dead because it prevented him from ‘squeezing the life out of him with my bare hands’. Tom thinks for a bit about other areas of commonality in modern death. ‘Flowers are less of a deal than they were,’ though there are exceptions. A floral tribute shaped like a massive Marlboro Gold was a highlight.
Ultimately though, the goal is the same regardless of who it is in the casket or what they have on top of it. To provide dignity. That leads me to wonder, is there any particular secret to a good funeral? Yes, Tom says, ‘Use A. France.’
