The Quakers of the Bull-and-Mouth and Peel Divisions used a large ground near Bunhill Fields, between Checquer Alley and Coleman (now Roscoe) Street. It was acquired in 1661, and many times added to, and was used extensively by them at the time of the Great Plague, when they had their own special dead-cart. George Fox’s body was carried here in 1690, an orderly procession, numbering 4,000 persons, following to the grave. In 1840 a school was built in it, and the rest of the tale it grieves me to tell. A part of the burial-ground exists now, not half an acre in area. It is neatly laid out as a sort of private garden. Five thousand bodies were dug up in the other part and buried, with carbolic acid, in a corner of the existing piece, and the site from which they were removed is now covered with a Board School, a coffee palace, houses, and shops, including the Bunhill Fields Memorial Buildings, erected in 1881.[[5]]
[5]. Although 12,000 Quakers were buried in the Coleman Street ground, including Edward Burrough and others who died as martyrs in Newgate Gaol, George Fox’s grave was the only one marked by a stone,—a small tablet on the wall, with the simple inscription, “G. F.” This attracted visits from country Friends in such numbers that a zealous member of the Society named Robert Howard “pronounced it ‘Nehushtan,’” and caused it to be destroyed.
The remainder of the Friends’ burial-grounds are intact. The one in Baker’s Row, Whitechapel (acquired in 1687 and used by the Devonshire House Division), is now a recreation ground; and the one in Long Lane, Bermondsey, which was bought in 1697 for £120, has lately been laid out for the use of the public. In addition to these there are, in London itself, five little grounds adjoining meeting-houses in High Street, Deptford, in Brook Street, Ratcliff, in High Street, Wandsworth (given by Joan Stringer in 1697), by the Creek, Hammersmith, and in Hanover Street, Peckham Rye. The Society acquired the Ratcliff ground in 1666 or 1667, the land being originally copyhold, but enfranchised in 1734 for £21. All these grounds are neatly kept; the one in Peckham, which dates from 1821, is beautiful, and illustrates what can be done with a disused and closed graveyard, not even visible from the road, when it is treated with proper care and respect. Many of the burial-grounds just outside London have been sold with the meeting-houses.
There are not many Roman Catholic burial-grounds in London apart from those attached to conventual establishments. St. Mary’s Church, Moorfields, has a very small churchyard and had two additional grounds, one in Bethnal Green which has disappeared, and one in Wades Place, Poplar, now used as a school playground. This is the case also with a Roman Catholic burial-ground in Duncan Terrace, Islington, which has been asphalted for the use of the boys’ school, some tombstones and a figure of the Virgin Mary being in an enclosure on the north side. There is a very large ground dedicated to All Souls, by St. Mary’s Church, Cadogan Terrace, Chelsea, and a small one by the church in Parker’s Row, Dockhead, S.E., the garden here, which is now a recreation ground for the schools or the sisters, having also been used for burials. There is one in Woolwich, lately encroached upon through the enlargement of the school, where three lonely-looking graves are in a railed-in enclosure in the middle of a tar-paved yard; and there is also the ground behind St. Thomas’s, Fulham, which is still in use.
FRIENDS’ BURIAL-GROUND IN WHITECHAPEL.
But the burial-grounds adjoining Baptist, Wesleyan, Independent, and other Chapels, what shall be said of them? They have suffered terribly in the slaughter, and although many still exist, a very large number have entirely disappeared. Only three are open as public gardens—the Wesleyan ground in Cable Street, St. George’s in the East, which was added to St. George’s churchyard garden in 1875; the ground behind the Independent Chapel by St. Thomas’ Square, Hackney; and the burial-ground adjoining Whitfield’s Tabernacle, Tottenham Court Road, the subject of much litigation, which was opened in February, 1895, by the London County Council. The original chapel on this site was founded by George Whitefield in 1756, amongst his supporters being the Countess of Huntingdon, David Garrick, and Benjamin Franklin. One other graveyard was laid out as a garden, that adjoining Trinity Chapel, East India Dock Road, but it is now closed, no one at present undertaking its maintenance.
WHITFIELD’S TABERNACLE.
For the rest of the grounds, not only Methodist but also Congregationalist and above all Baptist, we must employ the “diligent search in dirty corners,” but all the seeking in the world will not restore those that are gone—sold and built upon. The fates of some of them are recorded in [Appendix B]. The parishes south of the river seem to have been great strongholds of dissent. Woolwich, Deptford, Walworth, and Wandsworth are still full of chapels, many of which have burial-grounds attached. North of the Thames perhaps Hackney is richest in chapels and chapel graveyards, including the Unitarian in Chatham Place. Whitechapel also had a great many. But in the Borough and other parts of Southwark the little meeting-houses swarmed at one time, some of which, with their little burial-grounds, still exist. A few of the chapels now belong to the Salvation Army; one in York Street, Walworth, has lately been acquired as the Robert Browning Hall, and its burial-ground is to be a public garden; others in Peckham, Woolwich, and Hammersmith have been converted into schools (the two last named being board schools), their graveyards being the playgrounds; and many more have fallen from their first estate.