1861 Census William H Blake Head Married 68 Glass Worker Streatham, Surrey, England Mary Blake Wife Married 67 - Birmingham, Warwickshire, England William Blake and his son Charles worked as glass cutters and Bethnal Green was an area in which this trade flourished. Cut glass is glassware characterized by a series of facets on its surface produced by cutting. The prismatic surface designs greatly enhance the brilliance and reflecting power of glass and so have made cutting one of the most popularly practised techniques of embellishing glassware. The cutting process involves roughing out a marked pattern on an article of glass with a revolving steel wheel that is kept coated with fine wet sand or an artificial abrasive. The wheel’s edge, which may be flat, convex, or V-shaped, leaves an incision that is smoothed by a sandstone wheel and then polished by a third, wooden wheel. A final polish is usually provided by acid dipping. During the mid-19th century the pressed-glass process was used to manufacture glassware that closely resembled cut glass in appearance at low cost. This development led to a decline in the demand for cut glass and eventually to practices aimed at reducing the cost of producing such glassware. Today much cut glass is partially moulded and then finished at the wheel, eliminating the expensive work of marking out the design and making the rough cut. William Henry Blake died on 1 May 1868 in Bethnal Green. His address at that time was 21 Cheshire St. He was buried on 10 May 1868 in Victoria Park Cemetery, Hackney. Victoria Park Cemetery was a private enterprise started by a limited company in 1845 to take advantage of the market for burials created by the inability of church graveyards to accept any more dead. This illustrated advert for Victoria Park Cemetery depicts an impressive landscape, with two chapels, an imposing entrance arch, and an assortment of trees and pathways. However, such sophistication was far from the truth. Having opened in 1845, Victoria Park Cemetery quickly developed a reputation for being among the worst cemeteries in London, with the Times (1856) describing it as “a loathsome place” with “revolting practices”. The cemetery went bankrupt in 1853, unable to attract wealthy customers. The business was bought out by one of the directors and continued. Despite its poor reputation, the cemetery was busy, with an average of 50 burials taking place each day. As many as 75% were infant burials, and the cholera epidemic of 1866 boosted the numbers further. It’s estimated that 500,000 burials took place here, before the cemetery closed in 1876. The cemetery was never consecrated and in 1885 it was turned into a recreation ground. All that remains of the cemetery is the gateway; with no indication that it was once a burial ground. The gateway bears the initials VPC and 1845.