Barrier, Gustav (1853-1945) Lewis H. Mates DRAFT VERSION: The final version of this was published in Douglas Davies with Lewis H. Mates, The Encyclopedia of Cremation (Ashgate, 2005), p.89 When the Paris Cremation Society was established in 1880, Gustav Barrier, then aged twentyseven, was one of the 109 founding members. Barrier became an important authority in the world of medicine, becoming President of the French Academy of Medicine. A ‘doyen’ of the French cremation movement, it was Barrier’s initiative and ‘great authority’ that led to the formation of the Fédération Française de Cremation (‘French Cremation Federation’) in 1930. Naturally, Barrier became the Federation’s first president, serving until 1938. Unfortunately, his age prevented him from playing a full part in the international developments in the cremation world in the 1930s: he was unable, for example, to attend the International Cremation Congress in Prague in 1936. In June 1938 Barrier was replaced as president of the French Cremation Federation and was elected its honorary president in recognition of his years of service. On his death, the wartime lack of fuel did not prevent Barrier’s cremation as his Paris colleagues managed to secure special dispensation to conduct the operation in February 1945. A decade earlier, fellow cremationist Dr Ichok wrote that Barrier, who had ‘remained in the fight’, was owed by the French cremation movement ‘a debt it can never repay’. References Ichok, Dr. G. (1935), ‘The Development of the Cremation Movement in France, part two’, Pharos 1(3):24-5. Report (1936), of the Prague International Cremation Congress, CRE/D4. ICF Committee for Propaganda (1963), ‘The World Problems of the Disposal of the Dead’, Paper Presented at the ICF Congress, Berlin. CRE/D4/1963/3. Pharos, 1934-1945, CRE/A/UK/19. 1