Help me to make sense of this image

Factual Questions
1

I was talking about the Ratcliffe Highway murders in another thread and later was looking through connected images. There was one in particular of the funeral of three of the victims.

Here is the contemporary drawing.

I’ve looked at it for a while but I can’t for the life of me work out what I assume are the coffin bearers in the center of the picture. It looks at first glance like 12 incredibly tall men in two sets of six cloaked from chest to knee by drapery. But then where are the coffins? And if the shapes that seem to be heads are ornaments of some kind on the draped coffins where are the bearers? In that case one can see their legs and nothing else, surely they can’t be entirely covered by the drapes. How could they see?

In the end I gave up and sought the help of you guys. I promise to kick myself if I’ve missed something obvious!

2

It looks to me as if it was just a bad picture. A drawing of course - not a photograph.

A contemporary account says “There were two coffins, the first contained Timothy Marr, the second Mrs Marr and the baby, both were draped in velvet palls and were carried on foot by 6 pall bearers from the Ratcliffe Highway to the church.”

There is another view of the cortege here Chapter 3. The Burial of the Victims | Spitalfields Life

3

After another look, I am inclined to your suggestion that there are ornaments on the top of the coffins and the bearers are hidden under drapery. The Marrs were mercers, so it may be a guild thing

4

Here is the story of the grisly end of the murderer. Chapter 9. A Shallow Grave | Spitalfields Life

5

That helps. One can see from that view, and the description of the coffins above, that what I’d thought were the heads of the bearers is in fact the ornamentation on the coffins, although it’s still a mystery how the bearers could see anything.

And you’re right about the bad drawing. Look at the size of those guys in the lead in the view you linked. They look to be about 9 foot tall!

6

Looking at this picture http://spitalfieldslife.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Ratcliffe-Highway-Murders-1811-7.jpg, it seems that the “heads” are actually ornamentation on the pall, made from cloth and feathers. I’ve read that ostrich feathers dyed black were a common mourning decoration.

7

You can see similar plumes on top of a coffin in this somewhat earlier engraving.

It should also be said that the artist of the first engraving cannot have been completely useless, as they have made a reasonable attempt at depicting St George-in-the-East.

8

Its speculation but why would the artist so totally fail to draw pallbearers ?
So as to not make them appear to be ghoulish or comic.

Since the pall bearers posture would be difficult to draw … he didnt… or he might have covered up his attempt to draw them with black to hide them … there appears to be some smudges in the positions above the legs.

9

Because the pall is draped over the bearers. See, for example, this engraving from rather later in the nineteenth century.