THEOLOGIANS and philosophers have for centuries asked what happens to a person after death - now the British government is asking the same question.

Statistics show that in 2001 the remains of 223,316 people were taken away from crematoriums. A new study will seek to discover what happened next. Cremation has become a part of British life since it was pioneered in Pontypridd in 1884 by druid Chartist William Price. When he was acquitted of charges resulting from publicly burning his illegitimate son a legal precedent was set.

According to the most recent figures, 72% of deaths lead to cremations. This is less than in Japan (98%) but more than in Canada (45%) and the United States (26%).

In 1971, relatives would take the remains away from the crematorium in only 12% of cases. Today the figure is more than 70%.

Anthropologists from Sheffield and London Metropolitan universities will spend 30 months on a government-sponsored project interviewing the bereaved and members of the funeral industry to learn how the British grieve.

Sandra Gornall of Aberystwyth Crematorium says that in her community 54% of the deceased are cremated rather than buried.

She said, "I think a lot of people go for cremation because the memorial gardens are kept by us. In cemeteries families have to tend their own graves."

Ms Gornall said other families liked the idea of burying the cremated remains in graves where their own relatives had traditionally been buried.

The secretary of the Cremation Society of Great Britain, Roger Arber, said the Industrial Revolution, and the land shortages in cities had speeded the British switch from burial to cremation.

"Between 1874 and 1885 there were more dead people in cemeteries than living people in the cities they served," he said.

The reason Americans have been slower to embrace cremation, he believes, is that they have historically had greater expanses of land on which to build cemeteries.

What the British do with the remains of their loved ones is a mystery.

"Nobody quite knows where they go," he said.

Casting them into the sea without the permission of the harbour master is forbidden, and local bylaws govern how they are distributed on land.

Orthodox Jews and Muslims are bound by their religion to bury and not cremate their dead. The Roman Catholic ban on cremation was lifted in 1963.

Violinist Nigel Kennedy will have his ashes scattered on the pitch of his beloved football team, Aston Villa.

For $3,900, Angels Flight (www.angels-flight.net) will put cremated remains in a firework they shoot across the ocean from a specially-designed yacht.

Lifegem, a flourishing international business, will now transform ashes into jewels in an operation ranging in cost from $2,499 to $13,999.

Its website (www.lifegem.com) says, "The proprietary Lifegem creation process creates diamonds from the true essence of our loved ones, the carbon."

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