The "Magnificent Seven" cemeteries of Victorian London

The Victorians had a very different attitude to death from us. Many more people died at a younger age, and the risk of dying before adulthood was very high. Among the poor people disease spread quickly, living conditions were unsanitary and there were none of the cures that we have for disease and infection today. The wealthier classes also succumbed to epidemics of flu and diphtheria. Today you might find that death is a taboo subject, but the Victorians, as Christians who held strong convictions about the eternal soul and the resurrection of the body, embraced the subject of death. This is possibly one reason why the tombs and mausoleums in the Victorian cemeteries are so splendid and inventive, and the families of the deceased would spend much more time visiting them and enjoying the experience. Sir William Tite, who designed the layout of the Norwood Cemetery and who is buried there in the catacombs, intended to make it like a pleasure ground. Cemeteries were often compared to Paradise.





In 1861 Queen Victoria’s beloved husband, Prince Albert, died and the entire royal household were to spend five years in official mourning. They were only allowed to go into semi-mourning after this period because of the effect it was having on the morale of her staff and the rest of the nation. There was something of a death cult around the whole ritual and paraphernalia of mourning, particularly among the wealthier and upper classes. Everything had to be carried out in the right way, with all black clothing and jewellery, black horses and black plumes on the carriage or hearse. Special official mourners were hired, called mutes, who wore sad expressions and as their name suggests, kept silent. Victoria was the ultimate grieving widow and in her behaviour and dress she set standards which other widows followed. Victoria never remarried; she remained in mourning for 40 years. You can often see Victorian style funerals in London today; many companies still keep the black carriage and horses like the one here from Westways Carriage Horses. Poor people in Victoria’s London were often buried in graves with just a simple wooden cross, or even in a pauper’s or common grave. There were sites provided for common graves in cemeteries and as individuals were not marked by any memorial, the poor remain invisible to us there. The Wildgoose Memorial library is a small museum and archive that deals with ‘The living in relation to the dead, and on memory and mortality’. You can visit it on www.janewildgoose.co.uk

Gothic style and culture

Originally, the term ’Gothic’ means barbarous or even rude – it was a term of insult in Renaissance times! The term originally refers to the style of architecture of the High and Late Medieval period, and it is chiefly characterized by the use of pointed arches, high ceilings with ribbed vaults and ‘flying buttresses’, the arched supports on the outside of cathedrals, which actually support the weight of the roof. At that time it was mainly used on European cathedrals and churches, as well as palaces, universities, castles, town halls and guild halls, and is associated with Christianity and its philosophy. It fell out of favour during the Renaissance.


The House of Lords.

In the C18th in Britain there was a revival of building in the Gothic style. The architect Pugin, who with Charles Barry designed the Houses of Parliament, admired the Gothic for its association with High Church Christian belief, saw it as the true Christian architecture and as being the product of a purer society. The major metropolitan cemeteries were built in parallel with this movement; Sir William Tite pioneered the first cemetery in the Gothic style at West Norwood in 1837, with chapels, gates, and decorative features in the Gothic manner, attracting the interest of contemporary architects such as Street, Barry, and Burges. He adopted a curved layout of paths, instead of the more Classical straight line, so that the walks in the cemetery would twist and turn up the hill to the two chapels. Pugin insisted on using the original materials associated with early Gothic: the limestone, red sandstone and green Purbeck marble can be see also in tombs around West Norwood. The style was immediately hailed a success and universally replaced the previous preference for classical design. Now Gothic means something more than architecture. In 1764 Horace Walpole published The Castle of Otranto, calling it a ‘Gothic story’. Jane Austen enjoyed lampooning the Gothic plot typical of Ann Radcliffe’s novels, such as The Mysteries of Udolpho, 1794, in Northanger Abbey, 1818, where the heroine has trouble distinguishing reality from the fantasy created by a Gothic sensibility.

The bio-diverse cemetery
In the wreath you will find some Yew (taxus baccata)

There are several fine Yew trees growing in Norwood cemetery. They are one of Britain’s oldest trees: some specimens are said to be 5000 years old. The oldest tree in London has been dated at 2000. The yew tree in the churchyard of St Andrew in Totteridge, north London, has a girth of over 8 metres.


The Totteridge Yew

Over the centuries yew has been used to make fine furniture often as drawers on bureaux or as boxes to contain personal belongings or documents. Famously the long bow men used yew in preparing their weapons. The golden colour wood makes a fine contrast on dark mahogany and walnut and is often used as inlays on furniture such as desks. There were also medical usage, a diaphoretic [to induce a sweat], tea made from the leaves was said to help to help in breathing difficulties and to sooth the lining of the stomach and to stop blood in the urine. A poultice of yew leaves was often used by bowmen to heal arrow wounds. The red berry is the only part that is not poisonous but the actual inner seed is very poisonous and so are the bark and needles, so great care has to be taken if handling yew.



As many yew trees pre-date the church with which they are associated it is interesting to reflect that the trees were part of pagan religious worship and many early Christian places of worship took over existing sites. As the sheep wandering in around the church were often poisoned it began the practice of building a hedge or a wall around the church to keep the animals out. This area was convenient for burials which led to the traditional churchyard and the yews that we associate with it.

Gothic inner gates to West Norwood cemetery designed by Sir William Tite.

Gravestone of Mrs Beeton (of Cookbook fame).

Sir Henry Doulton's mausoleum with crematorium in the background.

Vagliano's mausoleum in the Greek necropolis within West Norwood Cemetery.

Graves and memorials in the cemetery. The tomb holding Maria Zambaco is in the foreground.

This list of notable burials and interments in West Norwood cemetery presumably holds the key to some of the many and varied images presented in the visual montage which opened the West Norwood section of this thread:

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Wiki:

Interments and memorials

A War Memorial in the form of a Cross of Sacrifice is the first memorial a visitor encounters, between the main gate and the inner gate. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission lists 136 Commonwealth burials of the Great War and 52 of World War II, plus 18 cremations. There is also one Belgian war burial and two Greek civilian victims of the RMS Lusitania. There are many Anglo-Indian Army officers buried in various parts of the cemetery. Spencer John Bent, Victoria Cross recipient for action in World War I, is commemorated in a garden of remembrance.

More than 200 people in the cemetery are recorded in the Dictionary of National Biography. The Friends of West Norwood Cemetery have recorded and compiled biographies for many more of these with:

a large number of inventors, engineers, architects, and builders, such as Sir Hiram Maxim, inventor of the automatic machine gun, Sir Henry Bessemer, engineer and inventor of the famous steel process, James Henry Greathead who tunnelled much of the London Underground, William Burges and Sir William Tite, gothic architects.

many artists and entertainers, including: David Roberts, artist, William Collingwood Smith, painter, Joseph Barnby, composer and resident conductor at the Royal Albert Hall, Katti Lanner, ballet dancer, and actors E. J. Lonnen, Patsy Smart, Maria Zambaco and Mary Brough.

many notable medics, such as: Dr William Marsden, founder of the Royal Free Hospital and The Royal Marsden Hospital, Dr Gideon Mantell, the geologist and pioneering palaeontologist, and Sister Eliza Roberts, (Florence Nightingale's principal nurse during the Crimean War).

many sportsmen, including C. W. Alcock, founder of Test cricket and the FA Cup, Georg Hackenschmidt, Anglo-Estonian professional wrestler.

There are also many notables of the time, such as Sir Henry Tate, sugar magnate and founder of London's Tate Gallery, Arthur Anderson, co-founder of the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company, Paul Julius Baron von Reuter, founder of the news agency, and the Revd. Charles Spurgeon, Baptist preacher, Isabella Beeton (the famous cookery writer), who died at 28 in childbirth, to name but a few.

The Greek diaspora is well represented, including the Ralli family, Panayis Vagliano, Rodocanachi family, and Princess Eugenie Palaeologue.

The John Wimble memorial on Ship Path.

The grave of Sidney Robert Herbert.

Gravestone of Sir Hiram Maxim (inventor of the Maxim gun).

The J.W. Gilbart memorial.

Wildlife in West Norwood cemetery.

And finally.....

KENSAL GREEN CEMETERY



The last of the "Magnificent Seven" and the first to be opened (in 1833)

Kensal Green cemetery.

Famous stiffs of Kensal Green.

Notable burials

Monuments and chapel at Kensal Green CemeteryInterred at Kensal Green is Marigold Frances Churchill, the daughter of Winston Churchill and Lady Clementine, who died from a fever in 1921 at age three (this lovely little monument by Eric Gill was listed Grade II in 2001).

Other notable burials

Henry Ainley (1879–1945), actor
Harrison Ainsworth (1805–1882), author
Thomas Allom (1804–1872), artist and architect
Frederick Scott Archer (1813–1857), sculptor, photographer. Inventor of the Collodion process.
Charles Babbage (1791–1871), mathematician, computer scientist
Reverend Baden Powell, father of Robert and Agnes Baden-Powell
George Percy Badger (1815–1888), English Anglican missionary and scholar of oriental studies
Michael William Balfe (1808–1870), composer
James Barry (1795–1865), surgeon
George Birkbeck (1776–1841), doctor, academic and adult education pioneer
Julius Benedict (1804–1885), composer
Charles Blondin (1824–1897), acrobat, tightrope-walker
Sir George Ferguson Bowen (1821–1899), colonial administrator and 9th Governor of Hong Kong
Lady Diamantina Bowen (c. 1832/1833–1893), grand dame
John Braham (1774–1856), singer
George Bridgetower (1782–1860), West Indian-Polish violin virtuoso and friend of Beethoven
Louis de la Bourdonnais (1795–1840), chess master
Robert Brown (botanist) (1773–1858), botanist, discoverer of Brownian motion
Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806–1859), engineer, son of Marc Isambard Brunel and Sophia Kingdom (also buried here)
Marc Isambard Brunel (1769–1849), engineer, father of Isambard
George Busk (1807–1886), naval surgeon, zoologist and palaeontologist
Sir Augustus Wall Callcott (1779–1844), painter
Lady Maria Callcott (1785–1842), travel writer
John Edward Carew (1785–1868), sculptor
Anthony Carlisle (1768-1840), surgeon and scientist
Sir Ernest Cassel (1852–1921), merchant banker
Wilkie Collins (1824–1889), author
James Dark (1795–1871), proprietor of Lord's Cricket Ground
Andrew Ducrow (1793–1842), circus performer and horse-rider
Willie Edouin (1841–1908), comedian, actor and theatre manager
Sir George Elliot (1784–1863), naval officer (not to be confused with George Eliot)
Hugh Falconer (1808–1865), naturalist
Edward Francis Fitzwilliam (1824–1857), composer
Fanny Fitzwilliam (1801–1854), actress, singer and theatre manager
Erich Fried (1921–1988), Austrian poet and essayist
Marcus Garvey (1887–1940), black nationalist (subsequently exhumed and buried in Jamaica)
Bill George (1802–1881), Victorian dog dealer
Thomas Hood (1799–1845), poet, humorist and journalist
Philip Hardwick (1792–1870), architect
Philip Charles Hardwick (1822–1892), architect
Catherine Hayes (1818–1861), opera singer
James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784–1859), Romantic critic, essayist and poet
Charles Kemble (1775–1854), actor and theatre manager
Fanny Kemble (1809–1893), famous British actress and author
Marian Kukiel, (1885–1973) Polish General and MOD in exile during World War II
William Garrett Lewis (b. before 1834; d. 1885) pastor of Westbourne Grove Church
John Claudius Loudon, (1783 – 1843), Scottish botanist
John Graham Lough (1789–1876) , sculptor
Alexander McDonnell (1798–1835), chess master
Richard Graves MacDonnell (1814–1881), colonial administrator and 6th Governor of Hong Kong
William Charles Macready (1793–1873), actor
Edward Maltby, bishop of Durham
Kitty Melrose (1883–1912), actress
Ras Andargachew Messai (1902–1981), Ethiopian ruler
John Maddison Morton (1811–1891), playwright
John Lothrop Motley (1814–1877), American historian
John Trivett Nettleship (1841-1902), painter and author
Cuthbert Ottaway (1850–1878) first captain of the England football team
Robert Owen (cenotaph only) (1771–1858), industrialist and major social reformer
John Thomas Perceval (1803–1876), army officer, writer and campaigner
Harold Pinter (1930–2008), playwright, actor, director, screenwriter, poet and political activist
Steve Ross Porter (1949-1980), English musician (best known as a member of T. Rex)
Frederic Hervey Foster Quin (1799–1878), physician
Sir Terence Rattigan (1911–1979), playwright
John Wigham Richardson (1837–1908), shipbuilder
Henry Sandham (1842–1910), artist
Byam Shaw (1872–1919), artist
John Shaw Jr (1803–1870), architect and brother in law of Philip Hardwick listed above
Sir William Siemens (1823–1883), industrialist
Robert William Sievier (1794–1865), sculptor (also member of Cemetery board)
Krystyna Skarbek (1908-1952), Polish SOE agent
William Henry Smith (1792–1865), businessman
Dwarkanath Tagore (1794–1846), Bengali industrialist and benefactor
William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863), writer
Lydia Thompson (1838–1908), dancer and actress
Therese Tietjens (1831–1877), famous opera singer
Anthony Trollope (1815–1882), novelist
Sir Thomas Troubridge, 3rd Baronet (1815–1867), British army officer
J. Stuart Russell (1816–1895), theologian and author
William Vincent Wallace (1812–1865), composer
Thomas Wakley (1795–1862), surgeon, campaigner and founder of The Lancet
John William Waterhouse (1849–1917), artist
John Whichcord Jr. (1823–1885), architect
Jane Williams (1798–1884), subject of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Alfred Wigan (1814-1878), actor-manager
Erasmus Augustus Worthington (1791–1880), artist and author
[edit] Royal burialsPrince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex and son of King George III of the United Kingdom
Princess Sophia, sister of Prince Frederick and daughter of King George III.
Prince George, Duke of Cambridge, commander-in-chief of the British Army

Notable Cremation

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991), singer of Queen (ashes reputedly scattered on the shores of Lake Geneva, near Montreux, Switzerland where a statue commemorates him)