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 the first place it is to be noticed that the Jews, as a race, are
particularly pledged to preserve their burial-places. This is not a law
among them—so I have been told by the Chief Rabbi—but a binding
obligation handed down from the most ancient times, and any disturbance
of the burial-grounds which now exist is not permitted. No doubt it was
totally beyond their power to prevent the “Jews’ Garden” from being
covered with streets, its very size and position rendered it practically
impossible to preserve, and it was probably annihilated during one of
those periods when the Jews were expelled from England. Another
exception which proves the rule is at Oxford, where the Botanic Garden,
which dates from 1622, was made on the site of the Jewish burial-ground.
They also strictly observed the sanitary laws respecting burial laid
down for them, and their cemeteries have not been overcrowded. Burial is
only allowed at 6 feet from the surface of the ground, and only one body
is in each grave, one coffin not being placed above another; and this
rule has been carried out in the Jewish burial-grounds in London—again
with one exception.
In the very large, old graveyard in Brady Street, Bethnal Green
(formerly called North Street), there are walls running through it, and
the southern half is higher than the northern half, having quite a hilly
appearance. The following is the explanation. This half of the ground
was originally allotted to “strangers,” Jews who belonged to no special
congregation. About thirty years after it was full, a layer of earth, 4
feet in depth, was added to the ground, and it was used over again. As
the coffins were again placed 6 feet from the surface, there still
remained 4 feet of earth between them and the old ones beneath. As a
result of this curious and interesting arrangement, there may be seen,
in several cases, two gravestones standing up back to back, which
represent the two graves below them. Here lie buried, with other members
of the family, Nathan Mayer de Rothschild, the founder of the English
house of Rothschild, Asher and Benjamin Goldsmid, and many another Jew
famous on ’Change.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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