The London Burial Grounds: Notes on Their History from the Earliest Times to the Present DayHolmes, Isabella M.
History
The London Burial Grounds: Notes on Their History from the Earliest Times to the Present Day
Holmes, Isabella M.
Cemeteries -- England -- London -- History
IN looking one day at Rocque’s plan of London (1742-5) I noticed how
many burial-grounds and churchyards were marked upon it which no longer
existed. I made a table of them, and traced their destiny, and the
result of this research was printed in the First Annual Report of the
Metropolitan Public Gardens Association, which was issued in 1884. I
then went further, and commenced to draw up a list of all the
burying-places, of which I could find any record, still existing, or
that had ever existed in London. It was no easy task. A return drawn up
by the late Sir Edwin Chadwick in 1843, for the use of the Parliamentary
Committee which sat to consider questions relating to the sanitary
condition of the labouring classes, contains a most valuable, though not
perfectly complete, table of the graveyards in actual use at that date.
Then there are the returns of the grounds closed by order in Council in
1853 and 1854, and still open for interments in 1855, which are also
very useful. There is a return, dated June, 1833, purporting to show all
the “Places of Burial belonging to each Parish or Precinct under the
Authority of the Bishop of London,” and all the “Places of Burial
belonging to Dissenting Congregations within the Bills of Mortality,”
&c., with their size, and the annual number of burials in them. This,
when I found it, I thought would be a great treasure, but I soon
discovered such entries as the following: “Three letters have been
addressed to the Officiating Ministers of the parishes of St. Benet,
Gracechurch, St. Martin, Ludgate, and St. Margaret, Westminster,
respectively; but no return has been received from either.” “The united
parishes of Allhallows, Bread Street, and St. John the Evangelist, not
being under the authority of the Bishop of London, I have not any return
to make.” “I beg to add that there are several other places used as
burial-grounds in this parish (Stepney) belonging to Jews, Dissenters,
and others, of which I have no official cognizance, and to which, in
fact, I have no access,” &c. And with regard, generally, to the second
part of the return, the following simple remark is made: “The Secretary
of State is not able to ascertain the Places of Burial belonging to
Dissenting congregations within the Bills of Mortality.” In 1839 Walker
described the condition of 47 of the most crowded metropolitan places of
interment, and the Parliamentary Committee which sat in 1842 heard
evidence about these and some others. In Maitland’s “History of London”
there is a list of 64 burial-places used in the year 1729, and not
included in the Bills of Mortality. Some of these are outside London,
and some are only vaults under buildings. I have also kept a list of
about fifty books which I found of use, although in many of them only a
few burial-grounds are mentioned or described. And this, with the
addition of various ancient and modern maps and plans of London and its
environs, is the material upon which I have had to work. But as it is
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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