Kensal Green Cemetery In-depth

















Kensal Green Cemetery, located in Kensal Green, London, England, was incorporated in 1832 by The General Cemetery Company, and is the oldest of the 'Magnificent Seven' cemeteries still in operation. It is the only such cemetery established by an act of the British Parliament with a mandate that its bodies may not be exhumed and cremated or the land sold for development. Once the cemetery has exhausted all its interment space and can no longer function as a cemetery the mandate requires that it remains a memorial park. The General Cemetery Company constructed and runs the West London Crematorium within the grounds of Kensal Green Cemetery. More cremations than earth interments take place these days.
 
Whilst borrowing from the ideals established at Père Lachaise in Paris some years before, the Kensal Green Cemetery project was used as a design and management basis for many cemetery projects throughout the British Empire of the time. In Australia for example The Necropolis at Rookwood 1868 and Picturesque Waverley Cemetery 1877 both in Sydney are noted for their use of the "Gardenesque" landscape qualities and importantly self sustaining management structures championed by The General Cemetery Company.
 
The cemetery is the burial site of approximately 250,000 individuals in 65,000 graves, including upwards of 500 members of the British nobility and 550 people listed in the Dictionary of National Biography. A garden style cemetery, Kensal Green is the oldest of seven private Victorian cemeteries located in the outskirts of London. Adjacent to Kensal Green is St. Mary's Roman Catholic Cemetery.
 
Interred at Kensal Green is Marigold Frances Churchill, the daughter of Sir Winston Churchill and Lady Clementine who died from a fever in 1921 at age three. Also interred are two children of King George III of the United Kingdom, who desired to be buried at Kensal Green instead of Windsor Castle: Princess Sophia and her brother, Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex.
 
Some of the other notables interred here are:
 
Henry Ainley (1879-1945), actor
 
Thomas Allom, artist and architect
 
Charles Babbage (1791-1871), mathematician, computer scientist
 
James Barry (1795–1865), surgeon
 
George Birkbeck, doctor, academic and adult education pioneer
 
Charles Blondin, acrobat, tightrope-walker
 
John Braham, (1774-1856), singer
 
Louis de la Bourdonnais, chess master
 
Isambard Kingdom Brunel, engineer
 
Marc Isambard Brunel, engineer
 
John Edward Carew, sculptor
 
Sir Ernest Cassel, merchant banker
 
Wilkie Collins, author
 
Hugh Falconer, naturalist
 
Thomas Hood, poet, humourist, journalist
 
Philip Hardwick (1792-1870), architect
 
Philip Charles Hardwick (1822-1892), architect
 
Catherine Hayes (1818-1861), opera singer
 
Fanny Kemble, actor, poet
 
William Garrett Lewis, (died in 1885) pastor of Westbourne Grove Church
 
John Graham Lough (1798 - 1876) , sculptor
 
Alexander McDonnell, chess master
 
Kitty Melrose, actress
 
Freddie Mercury (1946-1991), singer (cremated here; location of ashes undisclosed)
 
Ras Andargachew Messai (1902-1981), Ethiopian ruler
 
John Lothrop Motley (1814-1877), American historian
 
Robert Owen (memorial) (1771-1858), industrialist and major social reformer
 
John Shaw Jr, architect (1803-1870) 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)
 
William Henry Smith, businessman
 
William Makepeace Thackeray, writer
 
Therese Tietjens, famous opera singer
 
Anthony Trollope, novelist
 
J. Stuart Russell (1816-1895), theologian and author
 
William Vincent Wallace (1812-1865), composer
 
John William Waterhouse (1849-1917), artist
 
George Bridgetower (1782-1860), West Indian-Polish violin virtuoso and friend of Beethoven

























































































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