What have the Victorians ever done for us? Well, along with those familiar things like inventing the telephone, giving us the theory of evolution and expanding the railways, they were also responsible for the creation of the obituary as a distinct genre of journalism.
Prompted by the Victorian obsession with the memento mori and a new appetite for biography, The Times started publishing obituaries in the mid-19th century.
Long before this, from its foundation in 1785, the paper had recorded deaths of public interest, but in the form of short announcements or notices. These gradually evolved into carefully researched short biographies to satisfy the demands of the Victorian readership, who were gripped by news of the demise of a prominent figure, particularly those of note on the world stage. John Thadeus Delane, editor of The Times from 1841 to 1877, understood that high-profile deaths were stories that would dominate the news agenda, not least because of their historical import. The Duke of Wellington’s death, he said, will be “the only topic”. It certainly was. His Times obit weighed in at a staggering 30,674 words, the second longest in history. (The longest? The Times ran 49,741 words for Queen Victoria.)
Now for the first time in the paper’s history, obituaries will be available in audio form in a new weekly podcast launching on Tuesday.
Your History will focus on two obituaries published each week in The Times, typically one for a household name and one for someone less well-known, but no less worthy of recognition. In between commentary from me, the presenter, it will include abridged versions of the obits read aloud, audiobook-style, to bring the written word to life.
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On weeks when the grim reaper has been particularly unforgiving — such as when the deaths of Henry Kissinger, Shane MacGowan and Alistair Darling were announced on the same day last November — the format of the show will be suitably adjusted. There will also be some archive specials looking back on those who died in the more distant past, but the overriding aim of each episode will remain the same: to explain why these individuals’ lives form a part of our collective history.
Like the obits pages themselves, the cast list will be varied: from politicians to rock stars, scientists to soldiers, actors to athletes and authors to archbishops. All human life will be there and within them you will find stories of genius, innovation, adversity, eccentricity and even sometimes villainy. All these lives will have left an indelible mark on the world.
The title of the podcast is inspired by Nelson Mandela, who once said, with characteristic insight, “You can’t really be proud of yourself if you don’t know your history”. Mandela, of course, was reflecting on the struggle to end apartheid, a defining chapter in modern times. He knew that the only way to take stock of the present was to understand the past.
Obituaries are often called “the first draft of history” because they combine biography with social, political and cultural context. Before Dame Mary Quant unleashed her fashion revolution in the Sixties, her Times obituary reminds us: “It was an era of rationing, Typhoo tea and stockings. ‘London was dead,’ Quant said. Chelsea was still a sleepy village where locals went out to get bread in their dressing gowns. The British were only good at tweed, boots and uniforms, she declared, and fashion wasn’t designed for young people.”
Unsurprising, then, that obits remain a valued source for scholars, particularly historians and biographers.
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Back in the Victorian era, Delane could scarcely have imagined people listening to those stories of remarkable lives through a curious handheld device known as a smartphone. But just as obituaries became a staple of the paper of record, podcasts have become a staple of modern media. About 20 million people in the UK listen to them and that audience is predicted to grow to 28 million by 2026. It’s a cliché to talk about “moving with the times”, but sometimes it’s undeniably fitting.
Anna Temkin is deputy obituaries editor of The Times and the presenter of ‘Your History’. You can listen to the podcast every week from May 28 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
