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Said of a dead person, the humorous phrase to turn in one’s grave, and its variants, mean: to be likely to have reacted with horror to something if they were still alive to experience it.
A variant of this phrase occurs, for example, in a letter to the Editor, by one Chris Queally, published in the Portland Press Herald (Portland, Maine, USA) of Monday 23rd December 2024 [page A4, column 5]:
Barry Goldwater 1, look away now!
If people need any more proof that that [sic] the GOP has become deranged under the stewardship of the Donald, look no further than putting RFK Jr., with his worm-eaten brain, in charge of health care, never mind Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy in the Cabinet. Barry Goldwater is spinning counterclockwise in his grave.
1 The U.S. politician Barry Goldwater (1909-1998) was the Republican Party’s nominee for President of the USA in 1964.
These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences of the phrase to turn in one’s grave and variants that I have found:
1-: From the transcript of a speech that William Windham (1750-1810) delivered in the House of Commons on Monday 4th November 1801, published in The Sun (London, England) of Thursday 5th November 1801 [page 2, column 1]:
Was it possible that any Politician could contemplate the enormous power of France without trembling? Could our Statesmen of former days take a view of it, they would turn in their graves at the sight.
2-: From Headlong Hall (London: Printed for T. Hookham, Jun. and Co., 1816), a novel by the English author Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866) [chapter 14, page 194]:
“She is going to be married to my friend Mr. Foster, the philosopher.”
“Oh!” said the maiden aunt, “that a daughter of our ancient family should marry a philosopher! It is enough to make the bones of all the Ap-Rhaiaders turn in their graves!”
3-: From To the Reformers in general, dated Boiley, Wednesday 23rd October 1816, published in Cobbett’s Weekly Political Register 2 (London, England) of Saturday 26th October 1816 [page 409]:
These regulations, and the penalties which are attached to any breach of them, operate to an almost total exclusion of the common people from any considerable portion of useful knowledge through the means of the press, about the freedom of which our unprincipled hirelings have still the audacity to boast, though if our forefathers could hear of the state of slavery to which it is reduced, the hearing of it would make them turn in their graves.
2 William Cobbett (1763-1835) was an English journalist and political reformer.
4-: From The Morning Post (London, England) of Tuesday 13th May 1817 [page 3, column 4]:
In the House of Lords Earl Grey 3 brought forward a motion on the subject of the judicious and excellent Circular Letter of Lord Sidmouth on the subject of blasphemous and seditious publications. […] In a long and tedious speech, in which false rhetoric vied with false law—in which Lord Coke and Lord Hale, and all our most learned and venerable lawyers, were garbled and misrepresented—in which the names of these revered lawyers were profanely coupled with doctrines which they never held, and were ever incapable of holding, and the very imputation of which was enough to make them turn in their graves—in such a speech as this did Earl Grey make his long threatened assault, not upon Lord Sidmouth’s letter, but in fact upon the law of the land.
3 Charles Grey (1764-1845), 2nd Earl Grey, was a British Whig politician.
5-: From an account of the debates that took place in the House of Commons on Thursday 25th April 1822, published in The Commercial Chronicle (London, England) of Saturday 27th April 1822 [page 2, column 4]:
Mr. CANNING said […] it had been made an article of reproach on the other side that the enemies of Reform treated these subjects with shamelessness, and that they now spoke with levity of circumstances which, according to the opinion of one Gentleman, were sufficient to make their ancestors perform certain evolutions in their graves.—(Hear, hear, and laughter.)
6-: From Scotch Ratting: Or, Peter Doctor Macculloch’s attack on the Bank of England, dated Kensington, Tuesday 16th August 1825, published in Cobbett’s Weekly Political Register (London, England) of Saturday 20th August 1825 [page 470]:
Out come you, and give the lie to the poor Oracle, while his Lecture-legacy is enabling you to lick from your lips something more savoury than burgoo. Poor Oracle! Your ratting must, surely, make him turn in his grave.
7-: From Public Charities, published in The Monthly Magazine or British Register of Literature, Sciences, and the Belles-Lettres (London, England) of July 1827 [page 8]:
Robert Aske’s intentions were to found alms-houses for twenty poor single men, free of the Haberdashers, with a pension of 20l. each; and to clothe, feed, and educate as many boys as the surplus of the funds would permit, at 20l. each. […] The income of the charity is now 3,469l. 7s. 2d. […] With this sum, seventeen old men are supported in the lowest style of pauperism, and twenty boys in the same miserable state […]. It is enough to make the good Robert Aske turn in his grave.
8-: From an account of the debates that took place in the House of Commons on Monday 18th February 1828, published in The Sun (London, England) of Tuesday 19th February 1828 [page 3, column 6]:
Mr. BROUGHAM—Why then so foolish a business, and so much of a piece with this whole “Comedy of Errors” was never heard of. […] I am glad, Sir, that one of your predecessors is not now in the Chair, or else we might hear of our ancestors turning in their graves with astonishment at this extraordinary raree show.
9-: From To the Duke of Wellington. On the State of the Foreign Affairs of England, dated Barn-Elm Farm, Tuesday 7th October 1828, published in Cobbett’s Weekly Political Register (London, England) of Saturday 11th October 1828 [page 457]:
The glorious victory of Navarino produced the invasion of Turkey by Russia, and the invasion and the permanent occupation of Greece by the French; and these invasions, aided by a second fleet, which you have permitted Russia to send into the Mediterranean, have produced the BLOCKADE OF THE DARDANELLES, which your Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has now announced to the nation in the following terms, sufficient to make those of our forefathers, whose bones and sinews are not dislocated, turn in their graves and place their faces downwards for shame.
I have found an early occurrence of the variant to spin in one’s grave in the following from Cycling round the world. Over the Persian highlands in snow, a correspondence from Mianeh, Persia, published in the Devon and Exeter Gazette (Exeter, Devon, England) of Saturday 2nd January 1897 [page 4, column 1]:
Our journey was to be over desolate highlands, so we hired a Government escort to canter ahead, while Mr. Wood sent one of the Consulate guards, mounted on a spirited roan, to do us honour till the city gates were passed. A screeching mob accompanied us through the bazaars. The escort, a villainous, cross-eyed ragamuffin, tattered enough to make old Teufelsdrockh 4 positively spin in his grave, showed the way.
4 This refers to the fictional German philosopher Diogenes Teufelsdröckh in Sartor Resartus, a humorous essay by the Scottish historian and political philosopher Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), first published serially in 1833-34.
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