By the end of the 18th century, European cities had grown to such an extent that the tradition of burial in local churchyards had become a major health issue. In London, scandals erupted about overcrowding in pauper burial grounds and a corpse fire once burnt for a week, casting a pall of the ashes of the dead over the whole city. This illustrated lecture by professor Roger Luckhurst—author of Graveyard: A History of Living‍ with the Dead—will look in detail at the scandals that prompted reform in London in the 1820s and 1830s and how the campaigner George 'Graveyard' Walker got the law changed after decades of lurid reporting about the crush of the dead in the modern city.