Where does "spinning in his grave" come from?

Question

To quote Demitri Martin (taken from this session at around 0:57):

When there's someone who's dead and then someone does something that that person would not have liked, they say that that person is spinning in their grave. But I don't understand why they say that; why is spinning the way that a corpse shows disapproval? [...] If we showed disapproval like that when we were alive, that would make more sense.

Where did this expression spinning in his grave come from? Did it originate in English, or did it come in from another language or culture?

Answer 1

It may come from the gravestone inscription "rest in peace". This was originally meant to refer to the spirit, but was later interpreted as the body resting in peace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rest_in_peace

It follows that a dead person who not resting at peace will move around in their grave like a restless sleeper. The idea of "spinning" in their grave is a comic exaggeration.

Answer 2

The Phrase Finder mentions a usage that traces back to 1864, and then quotes another from 1888:

"This holiday-making and mixture of high and low here, are themselves enough to make Sir Massingberd turn in his grave." (James Payn's Lost Sir Massingberd)

Jefferson might turn in his grave if he knew of such an attempt. (James Bryce, The American Commonwealth)

Wikipedia mentions an even earlier quote, from 1849:

One of the earliest uses is found in William Thackeray's 1849 work The History of Pendennis, where Mrs. Wapshot, upset by a man's advances on the widow of Mr. Pendennis whom the widow had "never liked," says it's "enough to make poor Mr. Pendennis turn in his grave."

If the Ngram is to be believed, it looks like the phrase was working itself into idiom status by the turn of the century:

If my old friend Kimball could know how he is named by you I feel sure he would turn over in his grave and hide his face for very shame. (The Railway Age and Northwestern Railroader, Volume 28, 1899)

Answer 3

To spin in one's grave dates from around 1900, for example in this 1903 US newspaper. The original phrase is to turn in one's grave.

The OED's earliest quotation is from 1881.

The earliest I found was from a 4th November 1801 House of Commons speech by a Mr. Windham on Britain giving too much power to France during the preliminaries of peace of the revolutionary wars:

Thus have we done a thing altogether unknown in the history of this country ; a thing which would have scared all former politicians ; a thing, which, if our old Whig politicians were now to hear, they would turn in their graves.

Source: The Parliamentary Register: Or an Impartial Report of the Debates that Have Occured in the Two Houses of Parliament, Volume 1 (1802)

Answer 4

I'm pretty sure it's

"turning over in their grave".

And it's more of an analogy to being disturbed in your sleep. When you're sleeping and someone/something disturbs you (say, a loud sound, or someone speaking to you), don't you tend to turn away from it and change your position?

Also sometimes if you're having a bad dream, you tend to turn in your sleep.

EDIT:
Oops. Just realised I only partly answered your question. I don't know about the geographical origin, but @J.R seems to have answered that part.

Answer 5

Actually the original fact behind the idea of a corpse turning in the grave is that it was often found that when graves were opened, the skeleton was found turned around, on its belly, so to speak. What it means is that the person was not really dead, but was buried alive.

In Europe, most graves are removed for new use after a certain time; the places I know of it is 20 or 25 years, i.e. about a "generation", because there is not enough space for all the graves required. That is why they are opened to remove the bones. And it seems it happened relatively often that the skeleton was turned around, which meant it was a sign of the struggle of the person to open the casket and get out. This is common knowledge among gravediggers, and must have become known in general in earlier times, so that the idea of spinning as an exaggeration developed.