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The funeral was a symbolic event in Welsh society, and members of staff and relatives of patients at the Denbigh Asylum shared cultural assumptions about the importance of a final resting place for the body. Formal procedures following the death of a patient were governed by asylum rules and regulations. At Denbigh the asylum chaplain played an important role, both in terms of ministering to the dying and in performing the funeral ceremony. During the late nineteenth century the burial ground became a contested space as nonconformists and Roman Catholics fought against the ascendancy of the Anglican Church in Wales and demanded that patients be buried according to their religious affiliation. The lunatic asylum became a site for advancing the case for Welsh disestablishment. By the twentieth century, infectious diseases had become a serious concern, and the need to carry out screening and conduct post-mortem examinations resulted in the appointment of a pathologist, whose main role was to conduct biological and histological examinations to identify cases of tuberculosis, syphilis, dysentery, typhoid, influenza and other bodily diseases.

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