THE BURIAL-PLACES OF FOREIGNERS IN LONDON.
“The very names recorded here are strange,
Of foreign accent, and of different climes;
Alvares and Revira interchange
With Abraham and Jacob of old times.”
LONGFELLOW.
IT is only natural that in London, to which so many from other countries
have fled, and where so many foreigners have lived, worked, and died,
there should be evidences left of their places of interment. Solitary
cases of their burial among Englishmen are, of course, to be met with
everywhere, and there are many such in the London graveyards. In
Rotherhithe Churchyard is a well-known tombstone erected to the memory
of Prince Lee-boo of the Pelew Islands, who died in 1784; in St. Ann’s,
Soho, there is a tablet to that of Theodore, the last King of Corsica;
there is the grave of an Indian chief in the burial-ground of St.
John’s, Westminster, in Horseferry Road; and it is said that the first
person interred in a part of Bishopsgate Churchyard was a Frenchman
named Martin de la Tour, while this ground also used to contain a very
old altar tomb with a Persian inscription round it to the memory of Coya
Shawsware, a Persian merchant, who died in 1626. The edition of Stow’s
“Survey,” published in 1633, contains a picture of this monument and an
account of the funeral ceremonies which took place at the grave.
Maitland also refers to it, but gives a totally different first name to
the merchant. It is evident that for some time after his burial his son
and other friends used to gather at the grave twice a day for prayer and
funeral devotions, until driven away by the ridicule of the populace.
[Illustration: JEWISH CEMETERY, MILE END.]
But there have been in London many special burial-grounds belonging to
special groups of foreigners, and several of them remain. Foremost among
these are the Jewish cemeteries.
Until the year 1177, the time of Henry II., the Jews in England were
only allowed one burial-place. It was known as the Jews’ Garden and was
outside the wall of London by Cripplegate, several acres being devoted
to the purpose—a neighbourhood subsequently known by the name of
Leyrestowe. When other burial-places were permitted, this ground was
built upon, but the remembrance of it still lives in the name of one
street in the district, Jewin Street, reminding us of the time of the
bitter persecutions which the Jews suffered, and which are chronicled,
to our shame, in English history.
“Pride and humiliation hand in hand
Walked with them thro’ the world where’er they went;
Trampled and beaten were they as the sand,
And yet unshaken as the continent.”
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.
Within the Metropolitan area there are at present nine Jewish
graveyards; there are others more lately acquired, and all still in use,
at Willesden, West Ham, Edmonton, Plashet, and Golders Green, Hendon,
The disused grounds which belong to the United Synagogue are those in
Brady Street, Bethnal Green, E., Hoxton Street, N., Alderney Road, Mile
End, E., and Grove Street, Hackney, E., and I cannot, unfortunately,
call them well kept, but the neatest is the one in Alderney Road. In all
of them the tombstones are upright, rather above the average size, and
with inscriptions upon them which are almost invariably in Hebrew. The
one in Hoxton is very small. It was originally formed for the use of the
Hamborough Synagogue, Fenchurch Street, and was first used about the
year 1700. All these grounds are old, part of the one in Alderney Road
dates from about 1700, while the Brady Street Cemetery was formed in
1795. Many of the tombstones have at the top a representation of two
outstretched hands with the thumbs joining, the symbol of descendants of
Aaron, the High Priest. Others have a hand pouring water out of a
flagon, and they are over the graves of the Levites whose duty in the
synagogue is to pour water upon the hands of the Priests (the
above-mentioned descendants of Aaron), who are nearly all named Cohen.
[Illustration: JEWISH CEMETERY IN FULHAM ROAD.]
In Ball’s Pond, Islington, is the small cemetery of the West London
Congregation of British Jews, which is still in use. Here some very
large and extravagant tombstones may be seen, and the ground is very
neatly kept. In Fulham Road (Queen’s Elm) is a dreary little ground
belonging to the synagogue in St. Alban’s Place, S.W. I believe an
occasional interment takes place here in reserve plots, but the
congregation has provided itself with another cemetery at Edmonton. I am
indebted to the kindness of Mr. R. Proctor for the photograph of this
graveyard. Some few years back, before the Disused Burial-grounds Act
was in force, a row of shops was built on the west frontage of the
ground, the one body lying in that part being removed to another place.
No doubt the freehold worth of the land was considerable at that time,
and therefore the congregation disregarded their scruples concerning
this one deceased member. The graveyard can only be visited between
certain hours on Sundays, but the rest of the Jewish cemeteries have
resident caretakers. In Bancroft Road, Mile End, is another dreary
place, which, although in so crowded a district, is still in use. When
last I visited it I was told there was room for about four more graves!
It belongs to the Maiden Lane Synagogue. None of these grounds, except
that at Ball’s Pond, have proper paths in them; they have been entirely
filled with graves, between which a few narrow lines like sheep-tracks
wind about the grass.
[Illustration: JEWISH BURIAL-GROUND BEHIND THE BETH HOLIM HOSPITAL, MILE
END.]
Lastly, there are the cemeteries of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews—one,
closed for burials, behind the Beth Holim Hospital in Mile End Road, and
one, nearly five acres in extent and still in use, just beyond the
People’s Palace. These are neatly kept, the former, or at any rate a
part of it, being actually turned into a sort of garden for the patients
in the hospital, with trees in it, paths and seats. The latter is bare
of trees or shrubs, but is divided into plots, with paths between. In
both of them the tombstones, unlike those in the other Jewish grounds,
are flat, either slabs on the ground or low altar tombs; and in the
large ground there are many children’s graves, marked by much smaller
altar tombs dotted amongst the large ones, which are very unique and
interesting. The Hebrew inscription at the entrance tells us that this
is “The House of the Living,”—“Beth Hayim.” The cemetery was acquired in
1657, and contains the remains of the ancestors of Lord Beaconsfield,
the Eardley family, Sampson Gideon, the Samudas, D’Aguilars, Ricardos,
Lopes, and many others who trace their descent from Sephardi Jews.
Hitherto it has not been possible to secure any of the Jewish graveyards
as public gardens, the feeling of the community is against it, but the
day may yet come when the Council of the United Synagogue will allow the
experiment to be tried.
[Illustration: JEWISH CEMETERY, MILE END.]
The burial-ground of the Greeks in London is an enclosure in Norwood
Cemetery, where some elaborate monuments may be seen. The Mohammedans
can practise their rites at Woking.
There is no special place at the present time, I believe, where Danes
and Swedes are buried, but their churches, with surrounding graveyards,
were situated close together, in Wellclose and Prince’s Square, E. The
church in Prince’s Square is still the Swedish church of London
(Eleanora), and there is a notice at the corner of a turning on the
south side of Cable Street, St. George’s in the East,—“Till Svenska
Kyrkan.” Here, in a vault, are the remains of Emmanuel Swedenborg
himself, while the garden contains many tombstones, especially an inner
enclosure which was filled first. But the building now situated in
Wellclose Square is no longer the Danish or Mariner’s Church, the site
is occupied by schools and mission buildings in connection with St.
Paul’s, Dock Street, the present seaman’s church. Nor are there any
tombstones in the garden, although it is certain that many Danes and
many sailors were buried under the church, and in a surrounding
graveyard, which was probably an inner enclosure like that in Prince’s
Square. Mention of it is made by Northook in 1773, and by Malcolm in
1803; and there is a picture of the church in Maitland’s “History of
London.” The following account from the “Beauties of London and
Middlesex (1815)” is also of interest:—“At the extremity of this parish
is Wellclose Square, which has also borne the name of Marine Square,
from the number of sea officers who used to reside in it. It is a pretty
little neat square; but its principal ornament is the Danish church in
the centre, in the midst of its churchyard, planted with trees.... This
structure was erected in 1696, at the expense of Christian V., King of
Denmark, as appears by the inscription: ‘Templem Dano Norwegicum
intercessione et munificentia serenissimi Danorum Regis Christiani
Quinti erectum MDCXCVI.’ Gaius Gabriel Cibber was the architect, who
erected a monument within this church to the memory of his wife Jane,
daughter of William Colley, Esq., and mother of Colley Cibber, the
famous dramatist. The architect himself is also buried here.” The
Flemish burial-ground was in the district of St. Olave’s, Southwark. It
adjoined a chapel in Carter Lane, and before its demolition was used as
an additional graveyard by the parishes of St. Olave and St. John,
especially the former. When the railway to Greenwich was made this
ground disappeared, and part of its site forms the approach to London
Bridge Station.
[Illustration: A South View of QUEEN ELIZABETH’S FREE GRAMMAR SCHOOL
in Tooley Street in the Parish of St. Olave, Southwark,
_with a Plan of the adjacent Neighbourhood_
THE FLEMISH BURIAL-GROUND, CARTER LANE, ABOUT 1817.]
In Milman’s Row, Chelsea, there is a quaint and curious burial-ground
belonging to the Moravians. The adjoining buildings have passed out of
their hands, their present chapel being in Fetter Lane, E.C. In 1750
Count Zinzendorf purchased two acres of land (a part of the garden and
stables of Beaufort House) of Sir Hans Sloane, about one acre of which
was set aside for burials, and divided into four parts—the first for
male infants and single brothers, the second for female infants and
single sisters, the third for married brothers and widowers, and the
fourth for married sisters and widows. The stones are flat on the grass
and very small, not more than about 11 or 15 inches by 10 or 12 inches
in size, and the ground was closed for interments about the year 1888.
There is no purely Dutch place of interment in London now. Besides the
Dutch Church in Austin Friars (the survival of the priory of the
Augustine Friars), which has lost its churchyard, they used to have a
few chapels which seemed to change hands, sometimes belonging to Dutch
and at other times to German congregations. Such was Zoar chapel, in
Great Alie Street, Whitechapel, which is now a Baptist conventicle. It
had a fair-sized burial-ground behind it at the beginning of the
century, the site of which is covered by houses and a forge. One day
recently I knocked at the door of this chapel, hoping to be allowed to
look round it, in order to make sure that no part of the yard was left.
The woman who opened it, when I politely asked if I might go in, said
“No!” and slammed the door again at once. One meets with varied
receptions in different places, Two German churches, with graveyards
attached, were also in this neighbourhood—the Lutheran (St. George’s),
in Little Alie Street, and the Protestant Reformed Church, in Hooper
Square. The latter has entirely disappeared, the railway covering its
site. The former church still exists, with the little yard behind it,
separated by a wall from the adjoining schoolyard, but the entrance from
Little Alie Street has been bricked up.
The precinct of the Savoy had a distinctly foreign flavour about it, but
the Savoy Chapel itself is now the only remnant left of the large group
of buildings which were used at different times as palace, hospital,
barracks, and prison, and finally demolished in 1877. The churchyard is
probably even older than the church. It is now a neat little garden, in
the possession of Her Majesty the Queen, as Duchess of Lancaster, and
laid out, chiefly at her cost, for the use of the public. This is the
burial-ground described by Dickens, in _All the Year Round_, with some
of his tenderest touches, and of which he says: “I think that on summer
nights the dew falls here—the only dew that is shed in all London,
beyond the tears of the homeless.” But the Savoy used to contain one, if
not two, German chapels, besides a French Jesuit chapel and a
meeting-place for Persian worship. The German church (wrongly called
Dutch on Rocque’s plan) had a burial-ground on its west side, which is
marked on the ordnance maps, except the very latest, as it survived
until 1876, when the human remains were removed to a cemetery at Colney
Hatch. Now its site is covered by part of the new block of buildings
which include the Savoy Chambers and the Medical Examination Hall. The
Rev. W. Loftie’s book, “Memorials of the Savoy,” gives a full and
interesting history of the Precinct, and is, as is usual with his works,
compiled with care and truthfulness; but beyond simply mentioning the
existence of the German burial-ground he has nothing to tell of it. We
should have liked to know what the gravestones were like, and whether
any persons of distinction were interred there.
We now turn to the French in London, and these have to be divided into
the Roman Catholics and the Huguenots. No doubt Frenchmen and
Frenchwomen have been laid to rest in the burial-grounds attached to all
the Roman Catholic churches, and especially in All Souls Cemetery,
behind the chapel of St. Mary, in Cadogan Place, Chelsea, which chapel
was built by M. Voyaux de Franous, a French _Émigré_ clergyman, and
consecrated in 1811. Large numbers were also interred at St. Pancras,
the eastern end of the old churchyard receiving, in consequence, the
name of “Catholic Pancras.” But this is the part which has been so much
disturbed and appropriated by the Midland Railway Company, and what
remains of it is some dreary, dark slips under the railway arches, and
groups and hillocks of tombstones which were moved into the western part
of the ground, where, amongst other illustrious graves, are those of Dr.
Walker, of dictionary fame, Mary Woolstoncraft Godwin, and William
Woollett, the engraver.
[Illustration: EAST HILL BURIAL-GROUND, WANDSWORTH.]
About the year 1687 between thirteen and fourteen thousand French
Protestants, driven from home by the intolerance of Louis XIV., settled
in London, some in Spitalfields, others in the district of St. Giles’
and Seven Dials, in Stepney, and in Wandsworth. There was a French
church at Wandsworth, which subsequently fell into the hands of the
Wesleyans, and the Huguenots who settled in this locality were chiefly
engaged in trade as hatters. As a result of these settlements we find
their graves in Bethnal Green Churchyard and other places, but
especially in the East Hill burial-ground at Wandsworth, where many
French Protestants of note were interred, and where there are some fine
old headstones and altar tombs. It is a picturesque ground between the
two roads, but, with the exception of a pathway through it, it is not
open to the public.
Foreigners now have to be buried in the cemeteries, and many a strange
service or ceremony has been held at the graveside of those who belong
to other climes, especially, perhaps, in Kensal Green Cemetery, Norwood
Cemetery, and the others that are non-parochial. The Jews and the Greeks
are, I believe, the only communities of strangers who still keep up
separate burial-grounds of their own in London.
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