F.A. Albin & Sons

Description

Albins evolved as Funeral Directors after being first, (well over 200 years ago) wardens of a Bermondsey cemetery. They also made coffins, moved the dead and supervised the burials.

With the opening of hospitals such as Guy’s and St. Thomas’, came the opportunity for the Albin family who had already cared for the dead for many years, to open their first official Funeral Parlour in Snowsfields, Bermondsey alongside the new St. Thomas’ Hospital.

It was not long before the premises in Snowsfields were outgrown. A stable for the horses and coaches was found in Fendal Street, Bermondsey and new shop premises at 62 Jamaica Road, Bermondsey (where Barry grew up).

In the very early days, of course, bodies were moved by hand carts and later through Victorian times, we saw the beauty of a horse-drawn carriage with anything up to six horses.

Our last original Horse-drawn funeral took place in the 1940’s and by the early 1950’s, we were using motorised hearses. Our first vehicles were bull-nosed Daimlers and Rolls Royce Hearses and limousines and later Princesses. Our original Rolls Hearse is still with us and in good working order.

Today we have a fleet of cars, of the highest standard, still in our original livery of black and burgundy and who would have thought, that all these years on, horse-drawn funerals would again be seen on the streets of London. How our early predecessors would be amazed and proud.

Today we have four horses, Fred, George, Ronnie and Reggie and four more in training, Arthur, Stanley, Alfred and Frederick. They can be seen proudly leading Albins funerals all over London.

Albins are proud to be successors to, or connected to, C E Hitchcock, Wildsmiths, Knox’s, Wilson and Wedge, KCH Repatriation and have branches in Bermondsey, Deptford, Mottingham, Sidcup, East London and West London – A truly family business run by our family for your family.