A mourning warehouse or ''maison de deuil'' was a shop which sold goods for

funeral A funeral is a ceremony connected with the final disposition of a corpse, such as a burial or cremation, with the attendant observances. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember and respect th ...

s and the elaborate

mourning Mourning is the expression of an experience that is the consequence of an event in life involving loss, causing grief, occurring as a result of someone's death, specifically someone who was loved although loss from death is not exclusively ...

of the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

. These included dark clothing and fabric which might be required for years of wear after a death. These establishments could also provide large items such as

coffin A coffin is a funerary box used for viewing or keeping a corpse, either for burial or cremation. Sometimes referred to as a casket, any box in which the dead are buried is a coffin, and while a casket was originally regarded as a box for jewel ...

s, a

hearse A hearse is a large vehicle, originally a horse carriage but later with the introduction of motor vehicles, a car, used to carry the body of a deceased person in a coffin at a funeral, wake, or memorial service. They range from deliberately ano ...

and appropriate horses to draw it. Large mourning warehouses were established in many American and European cities during the 19th century. In London, these included Peter Robinson's Family and General Mourning Warehouse in

Oxford Street Oxford Street is a major road in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, running from Tottenham Court Road to Marble Arch via Oxford Circus. It is Europe's busiest shopping street, with around half a million daily visitors, and as ...

and

The London General Mourning Warehouse The London General Mourning Warehouse was a mourning warehouse on Regent Street. It was established by William Chickall Jay in 1841 and so it was commonly known as Jay's. It sold all types of goods needed for funerals and the elaborate mournin ...

, established by W. C. Jay in

Regent Street Regent Street is a major shopping street in the West End of London. It is named after George, the Prince Regent (later George IV) and was laid out under the direction of the architect John Nash and James Burton. It runs from Waterloo Place ...

in 1841. In Paris, the ''Grande Maison de Noir'' was established in the

Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré The Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré () is a street located in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France. Relatively narrow and nondescript, especially in comparison to the nearby Avenue des Champs-Élysées, it is cited as being one of the most luxu ...

. In the 20th century, the fashion for elaborate funerals and mourning declined. The surviving establishments, such as

Hanningtons Hanningtons was a department store located in Brighton, part of the English coastal city of Brighton and Hove. Prominently situated in a central position in Brighton, it had an unbroken history of trading for nearly 200 years until its closure ...

of Brighton, tended to diversify by becoming more general

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...

References

Funeral-related industry {{death-stub