Lundensaren_sep19_historictext

“An indecent and scandalous scene”: Carl Lindell and the coffin incident of 1884

Every one of us has made a fool of ourselves. It does not matter when, how and where; we have all at some time acted hastily and arrogantly. For some of us, sometimes, alcohol has also been involved.

This is the story of just such an occasion. It is also the story of what it may be like to work as an archivist and writer of popular history articles: sometimes you find archival traces of an event that scream out to be the subject of an article, but at the same time it does not provide the material for more than one or two pages of text. That is why I have resisted writing this article for a long time, for fear that it would be pitifully short. Now, however, I have written it, and it is up to the reader to judge whether I too have made a fool of myself.

On the afternoon of Thursday 18 September 1884, Malmö’s inhabitants witnessed a sensational event; a carriage filled with a large number of people driving around the city streets. Normally, perhaps, a carriage full of passengers would not have attracted a great deal of attention in what was still a horse-driven time, but the fact that the carriage – in addition to the exceptionally noisy and hollering people – also contained a coffin full of spirit bottles certainly made one or two people raise their eyebrows.

One of the people in the carriage was the 20-year-old Lund student, Carl Lindell. He was born in Torrlösa, a small village in what is now Svalöv Municipality in Skåne, on 13 May 1863. His parents were tenant farmer Bengt Månsson Lindell and Cecilia Månsdotter. He was enrolled at Lund University in 1881 and was a member of the Skånska student nation’s second division. This division, called the Lund district division, had a membership comprised of students who had graduated from upper secondary school in Lund but who did not originate from the city itself. This article is about Carl Lindell.

A carriage. Although this is not the carriage in question, the picture gives an idea of the vehicle that was used.

So, what actually happened on 18 September 1884? Lindell, who was the only student in the group, had hired a carriage in Malmö together with a couple of friends from Lund. They subsequently had the brilliant idea of going to a coffin showroom, where they bought a child-size model. The coffin was placed on the seat of the carriage and filled with punsch bottles and glasses. Then they picked up “a couple of notorious women” and drove through the streets, “drinking and creating noise”.

We can imagine that the atmosphere in the carriage became more and more animated as the full bottles of punsch in the coffin were replaced by empty ones. Perhaps the noise level also rose. But sooner or later the fun had to end and when the last bottle was finished off the remaining question was what the carriage passengers would do with the coffin. The probably very tipsy group finally concluded that the most dignified end for a child coffin filled with empty bottles must be to launch it from the beach west of Malmöhus Castle. And that was how this Thursday in Malmö ended.

Sydsvenska Dagbladet and Lunds Weckoblad reported on the events on 20 September and 7 October 1884 respectively.

Whether or not the police intervened is not mentioned in the story, but as Lunds Weckoblad (more on this below) reported that the Malmö police were very slow to submit a report on the incident, we can perhaps guess that they intervened in some way, even if with limited enthusiasm. Regardless of that, we can guess that the morning after was not that pleasant for the passengers. Another person for whom Friday 19 September 1884 was not that agreeable was the turbine operator in Malmö (the City of Malmö had installed a turbine in 1870 to keep the canal clean), who had to retrieve a child coffin replete with empty bottles from the canal.

The incident, of course, created a great furore. Sydsvenska Dagbladet referred to it under the headline “Gross mischief”, and even the Norrbottens-Kuriren in Luleå carried a report on the matter, although it had a slightly less serious headline concerning Lund residents’ ‘guest performance’ in Malmö. Lunds Weckoblad waited until 7 October to report on the incident, and then referred to the “embarrassing impression” the matter “awakened in academic circles”. The fact was clear; such a matter could not be hushed up, or in this case pass unpunished.

Gustaf Ljunggren. University vice-chancellor and Lindell’s inspector

The fact that Lund University had its own court in olden times has been repeated so often in student history contexts that it hardly needs to be referred to here. What is perhaps less well known is that in 1852 the University’s academic jurisdiction was limited to matters relating to the behaviour of students and University staff (for more information on this refer to Fredrik Tersmeden’s article “A case of genuine Ågren” in Lundensaren no 10). This institution could be regarded as the forerunner of today’s Disciplinary Board. As the only participant with a link to the University in this “gross mischief” was Carl Lindell he was also alone when on 3 October 1884 he was brought before the vice chancellor Gustaf Ljunggren – who, to cap it all, was also inspector of the Skånska student nation! – to explain his actions.

At the interview with the vice-chancellor, Lindell confessed at once to what had happened. It was presumably futile to deny it; the facts of the case had of course been publicised in newspapers from Malmö to Luleå. However, the vice-chancellor did not take into consideration Lindell’s willingness to confess, and did not mince his words when judging that the “indecent and scandalous” scene and “the crudity of the display” gave him reason to expel Lindell from Lund University for one semester, a judgement that was conveyed to his student nation, the Academic Society and Uppsala University.

The vice-chancellor’s decision addressed to the Skånska student nation concerning Lindell’s expulsion due to his “participation in an indecent and scandalous scene”

So that was the end of the coffin incident of 1884. But, you might ask, whatever happened to Lindell? Well, according to the student directories he returned to Lund University in the spring semester of 1885, and is also listed in the student directory for the autumn semester of the same year, but thereafter is not mentioned again in the University’s documents. According to student nation genealogist Carl Sjöström’s membership list of the Skånska student nation, Lindell later emigrated to the USA, where he died in 1903. In his new country, Lindell earned a living as a physiotherapist, and then as owner of a “grand bathing facility”. And, as far as the latter is concerned, it is to be hoped that he had learned his lesson and didn’t launch any coffins in the swimming pool…

Text: Henrik Ullstad

Archivist at Record Management and Archives

The author would like to express his thanks to Lukas Sjöström and Fredrik Tersmeden for their help with proofreading, and also the last-named for the retrieval and scanning of archive documents.