So we go inside and we gravely read the stones
All those people, all those lives
Where are they now?
With loves, and hates and passions just like mine
They were born and then they lived and then they died
It seems so unfair, I want to cry*
Cemeteries might not be the first place that springs to mind when considering sociological research or sites of sociological interest, yet cemeteries and graveyards are inherently sociological. Death, as life, is defined by the intersections of class, religion, community and gender. What and how we choose to memorialise are also reflections of the behavioural standards of our time – what we value and what we choose to forget. What we remember and forget is socially determined. Each November, we remember the sacrifices made by those who died in conflict, yet we really commemorate those who died in the cause of capital. Few mark or take time to regard the scattered pit wheels to be found at the site of old collieries, while statues to the slave trades remain standing.
Cemeteries and graveyards represent a particular type of memorialisation, with testimonies that speak directly to the private troubles and public issues to which Mills (1959) refers. For anyone interested in autobiographical methods, cemeteries and graveyards are part of a relational web of documents of life and documents of death. They can also prompt imaginative thinking and sociological reflection. They can suggest sociological questions such as ‘how did this come to be?’.
(c) John Goodwin, 2025
In my local cemetery, there is a gravestone that has always prompted me to stop and reflect and ask how did this person come to be here? What are the circumstances that led a young man from Tallinn, Estonia, to be buried in a small Leicestershire village in the UK aged 19? What is the story, the relationships or the intersections of history and biography?
Harry Lang was born in 1929 in Tallinn at a time when Estonia was hit hard by the global economic depression. The economic downturn, political instability, and the rise of nationalism were the backdrop to Lang’s childhood. There was also the Soviet occupation of Estonia in 1940 and conscription into the Red Army for WW2. A period marked by repression and executions. Harry would have been only 11 in 1940, but these events may have affected his family directly, and many Estonians served in the British armed forces. Is this why he is here?
In other respects, the connection to Markfield may not be that surprising. At this time, mining and quarrying were booming in the area and may have been attractive to migrant workers – a pull for Harry’s family. Markfield was also the location for the County Sanatorium and Isolation Hospital for tuberculosis patients. Are these reasons for him being here?
Beyond this, we are reliant on genealogy websites where we can find a record of Harry’s death:
Beyond this, there is very little. The only other Harry Lang in all of Leicestershire works as a ‘hard confectioner’ or sweetmaker who lived at 45 Conduit Street in the 1920s, possibly working for the famous Fox’s Glacier Mints and possibly a relation of the Harry Lange in Makfield cemetery.
Harry’s story is but one starting point for thinking sociologically. We are surrounded by memorials of death, but few use them sociologically. Yet they tell us so much. They should also not be relegated to ‘genealogy’ as there are many overlaps between the sociologists and genealogists craft (see Goodwin 2019).
Puhka Rahus Harry Lang 1929- 1949,
References
Mills (1959) The Sociologcial Imagination, Oxford: New York
John Goodwin (2019) Searching for pearls: ‘Doing’ biographical research on Pearl Jephcott, Contemporary Social Science, 14:3-4, 528-541, DOI:10.1080/21582041.2018.1470329
*Songwriters: Johnny Marr / Steven Patrick Morrissey Cemetry Gates lyrics © Artemis Muziekuitgeverij B.v., Universal Music Publishing Ltd
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