Company description
Our company was founded in 1881 by Alfred Crawford Smith, a hatbox maker of Southwark, who, after losing one of his children, decided that he could better the services of other local undertakers. He was as good as his word, for by the time of his death in 1933 at the age of seventy five, his company was certainly the most renowned funeral directors in South London and was especially noted for its Dutch bred, Friesian horses, which were completely black. When all funerals were horse drawn, an average of forty stallions and geldings were stabled at the firm’s yard in Newington Crescent, Kennington and from our offices, we conducted funerals at cemeteries and crematoria in all parts of London.