Interments (felo de se) Act 1882 (original) (raw)

The Interments (felo de se) Act 1882 (45 & 46 Vict c 19) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which allowed a person whose death was felo de se (criminal suicide) to be buried in a churchyard at any hour, and with the usual religious rites. Previously, suicides could be buried only between 9pm and midnight, and without rites. Sir James Stephen said that the act was "so worded as to lead any ordinary reader to suppose that till it passed suicides were buried at a crossroads with a stake through their bodies".