Highgate Cemetery

Highgate Cemetery is a place of burial in north London, England, designed by architect Stephen Geary. There are approximately 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves across the West and East Cemeteries. Highgate Cemetery is notable both for some of the people buried there as well as for its de facto status as a nature reserve. The Cemetery is designated Grade I on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
Location
The cemetery is in Highgate N6, next to Waterlow Park, in the London Borough of Camden. It comprises two sites, on either side of Swains Lane. The main gate is on Swains Lane, just north of Oakshott Avenue. There is another, disused, gate on Chester Road. The nearest public transport (Transport for London) is the C11 bus, Brookfield Park stop, and Archway tube station.
History and setting
The cemetery in its original formthe northwestern wooded areaopened in 1839, as part of a plan to provide seven large, modern cemeteries, now known as the "Magnificent Seven", around the outside of central London. The inner-city cemeteries, mostly the graveyards attached to individual churches, had long been unable to cope with the number of burials and were seen as a hazard to health and an undignified way to treat the dead. The initial design was by architect and entrepreneur Stephen Geary.
On Monday 20 May 1839, Highgate (West) Cemetery was dedicated to St. James by the Right Reverend Charles James Blomfield, Lord Bishop of London. Fifteen acres (6 ha) were consecrated for the use of the Church of England, and two acres were set aside for Dissenters. Rights of burial were sold either for a limited period or in perpetuity. The first burial was Elizabeth Jackson of Little Windmill Street, Soho, on 26 May.
Highgate, like the others of the Magnificent Seven, soon became a fashionable place for burials and was much admired and visited. The Victorian attitude to death and its presentation led to the creation of a wealth of Gothic tombs and buildings. It occupies a spectacular south-facing hillside site slightly downhill from the top of Highgate hill, next to Waterlow Park. In 1854 a further 19 acres (8 ha) to the south east of the original area, across Swains Lane, was bought to form the eastern part of the cemetery; this opened in 1860. Both sides of the Cemetery are still used today for burials.
The cemetery's grounds are full of trees, shrubbery and wildflowers, most of which have been planted and grown without human influence. The grounds are a haven for birds and small animals such as foxes. The Cemetery is now owned and maintained by a charitable trust, the Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust, which was set up in 1975 and acquired the freehold of both East and West Cemeteries by 1981. In 1984 it published Highgate Cemetery: Victorian Valhalla by John Gay.
Graves
West Cemetery
The Egyptian Avenue and the Circle of Lebanon (previously surmounted by a huge, 280 years old Cedar of Lebanon, which had to be cut down and replaced in August 2019) are both Grade I listed buildings. The west side of the Cemetery is characterised by elaborate feature tombs, vaults and winding paths dug into hillsides. At the highest point, the Terrace Catacombs and the Tomb of Julius Beer are both Grade II* listed.
Notable West Cemetery interments
Henry Alken (1785 -1851), painter, engraver and illustrator of sporting and coaching scenes
Jane Arden, Welsh-born film director, actor, screenwriter, playwright, songwriter, and poet
John Atcheler, 'Horse slaughterer to Queen Victoria'
Edward Hodges Baily, sculptor
Beryl Bainbridge, author
Abraham Dee Bartlett, zoologist, superintendent of the London Zoo known for selling the popular African elephant Jumbo to P. T. Barnum
Julius Beer (and family members), owner of The Observer.
Francis Bedford, landscape photographer
William Belt, barrister and antiquarian, best known for his eccentric behaviour
Mary Matilda Betham, diarist, poet, woman of letters, and miniature portrait painter
Eugenius Birch, seaside architect and noted designer of promenade-piers
Edward Blore, architect known for his work on Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey
Edwin Brett, publisher and pioneer of serialised sensational weekly fiction and 'penny dreadfuls'
Jacob Bronowski, scientist, creator of the television series The Ascent of Man
James Bunstone Bunning, City Architect to the City of London
Robert William Buss, artist and illustrator
Edward Dundas Butler, translator and senior librarian at the Department of Printed Books, British Museum
Edward Cardwell, 1st Viscount Cardwell, prominent politician in the Peelite and Liberal parties, best remembered for his tenure as Secretary of State for War
William Benjamin Carpenter, physician, invertebrate zoologist and physiologist
Joseph William Comyns Carr, drama and art critic, gallery director, author, poet, playwright and theatre manager
John James Chalon, Swiss painter
Robert Caesar Childers, scholar of the Orient and writer
Edmund Chipp, organist and composer
Charles Chubb, lock and safe manufacturer
Antoine Claudet, pioneering early photographer, honoured by Queen Victoria as "Photographer-in-ordinary"
John Cross, English artist
Philip Conisbee, art historian and curator
Abraham Cooper, animal and battle painter
Thomas Frederick Cooper, watchmaker
John Singleton Copley, Lord Chancellor and son of the American painter John Singleton Copley
Sir Charles Cowper, Premier of New South Wales, Australia
Addison Cresswell, comedians' agent and producer
George Baden Crawley, civil engineer and railway builder
Charles Cruft, founder of Crufts dog show
Isaac Robert Cruikshank, caricaturist, illustrator, portrait miniaturist and brother of George Cruikshank
George Dalziel, engraver who with his siblings ran one of the most prolific Victorian engraving firms
George Darnell, schoolmaster and author of Darnell's Copybooks
David Devant, theatrical magician
Alfred Lamert Dickens, the younger brother of Charles Dickens
Catherine Dickens, wife of Charles Dickens
John and Elizabeth Dickens, parents of Charles Dickens
Fanny Dickens, elder sister of Charles Dickens
William Hepworth Dixon, historian and traveller. Also active in organizing London's Great Exhibition of 1851
The Druce family vault, one of whose members was (falsely) alleged to have been the 5th Duke of Portland.
Herbert Benjamin Edwardes, Administrator and soldier, known as the "Hero of Multan"
Joseph Edwards (sculptor), Welsh sculptor
Thomas Edwards (author), (Caerfallwch), Welsh author and lexicographer
Ugo Ehiogu, footballer
James Harington Evans, Baptist pastor of the John Street Chapel
Benjamin Hawes, 19th-century British Whig politician, known in UK parliament as "Hawes the Soap-Boiler"
Michael Faraday, chemist and physicist (with his wife Sarah), in the Dissenters section
Sir Charles Fellows, archaeologist and explorer, known for his numerous expeditions in what is present-day Turkey.
Charles Drury Edward Fortnum, art collector and benefactor of the Ashmolean Museum
Lucian Freud, painter, grandson of Sigmund Freud, and elder brother of Clement Freud
John Galsworthy, author and Nobel Prize winner (cenotaph, he was cremated and his ashes scattered)
Stephen Geary, architect (most notably of Highgate Cemetery)
John Gibbons, ironmaster and art patron
Stella Gibbons, novelist, author of Cold Comfort Farm
Margaret Gillies, Scottish painter known for her miniature portraits, including of one of Charles Dickens
John William Griffith, architect of Kensal Green Cemetery
Henry Gray, anatomist and surgeon, author of Gray's Anatomy.
Radclyffe Hall, author of The Well of Loneliness and other novels
William Hall, founder with Edward Chapman of publishers Chapman & Hall
William Dobinson Halliburton, physiologist, noted for being one of the founders of the science of biochemistry
Philip Harben, English cook regarded as the first TV celebrity chef
Sir Charles Augustus Hartley, eminent British civil engineer, known as 'the father of the Danube.'
George Edwards Hering, landscape painter
Edwin Hill, older brother of Rowland Hill and inventor of the first letter scale and a mechanical system to make envelopes
Frank Holl, Royal portraitist
Ian Holm, English Actor
James Holman, 19th-century adventurer known as "the Blind Traveller"
Surgeon-General Sir Anthony Home, Victoria Cross recipient from Indian Mutiny
Theodore Hope, British colonial administrator and writer
Thomas Hopley, headmaster who beat one of his pupils to death
William Hosking, first Professor of Architecture at King's College London and architect of Abney Park Cemetery
Bob Hoskins, actor
Georgiana Houghton, British artist and spiritualist medium
David Edward Hughes, FRS, 19th-century electrical engineer and inventor
William Henry Hunt, popular and widely collected painter of watercolours, nicknamed 'Bird's Nest' Hunt
Sir John Hutton, publisher of Sporting Life and Chairman of the London County Council
Georges Jacobi, composer, conductor and musical director of the Alhambra Theatre
Lisa Jardine, historian
Victor Kullberg, one of the greatest marine clockmakers
Thomas Landseer, younger brother of Sir Edwin Landseer (there is a cenotaph, Edwin was buried in St Paul's Cathedral)
Sir Peter Laurie, politician and Lord Mayor of London
Douglas Lapraik, shipowner and co-founder of HSBC and the Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels Group
Henry Lee, surgeon, pathologist and syphilologist
Oswald Lewis, MP and younger son of John Lewis, founder of the chain of department stores
Robert Liston, surgeon
Alexander Litvinenko, Russian dissident, murdered by poisoning in London
Edward Lloyd, influential newspaper publisher and founder of the Daily Chronicle
James Locke, a London draper credited with giving Tweed its name
William Lovett, Chartist
Samuel Lucas, editor of the Morning Star, journalist and abolitionist
Archibald Maclaine (British Army officer)
John Maple, founder of the furniture makers Maple & Co.
Hugh Mackay Matheson, industrialist and founder of Matheson & Company and the Rio Tinto Group
Frederick Denison Maurice, English Anglican theologian, prolific author and one of the founders of Christian socialism
Michael Meacher, academic and Labour Party politician
George Michael, singer, songwriter, music producer and philanthropist; buried beside his mother and sister.
Barbara Mills, (ashes) first female Director of Public Prosecutions
Frederick Akbar Mahomed, internationally known British physician
Jude Moraes, landscape gardener, writer and broadcaster
Nicholas Mosley, novelist and biographer of his father, Oswald Mosley
Edward Moxhay, shoemaker, biscuit maker and property speculator, best known for his involvement in the landmark English land law case Tulk v Moxhay
Elizabeth de Munck, mother of celebrated soprano, Maria Caterina Rosalbina Caradori-Allan in grave with large carving of pelican in piety
General Sir Archibald James Murray, Chief of Staff to the WW1 British Expeditionary Force
Walter Neurath, Publisher and founder of Thames and Hudson
Henry Newton, painter and co-founder of Winsor & Newton
Samuel Noble, English engraver, and minister of the New Church
George Osbaldeston, known as Squire Osbaldeston, sportsman, gambler and Member of Parliament (MP)
Sherard Osborn, Royal Navy admiral and Arctic explorer
Frederick William Pavy, physician and physiologist
William Payne, actor, dancer and pantomimist
Thomas Ashburton Picken, watercolourist, engraver and lithographer
Frances Polidori Rossetti, mother of Dante Gabriel, Christina and William Michael Rossetti
Samuel Phelps, Shakespearian actor and manager of Sadler's Wells Theatre
Owen Roberts (educator), pioneer of technical education, great-grandfather of Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon, husband of Princess Margaret.
James Robinson, dentist, first person to carry out general anaesthesia in Britain
Peter Robinson, founder of the Peter Robinson department store at Oxford Circus, London
Sir William Charles Ross, portrait and portrait miniature painter
Christina Rossetti, poet
Gabriele Rossetti, Italian nationalist and scholar. Father of Christina and Dante Gabriel Rossetti
William Michael Rossetti, co-founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
Tom Sayers, pugilist, his tomb is guarded by the stone image of his mastiff, Lion, who was chief mourner at his funeral
Henry Young Darracott Scott, responsible for the design and construction of the Royal Albert Hall
Sir Peter Shepheard, architect and landscape architect, President of the RIBA, Architectural Association, Landscape Institute and the Royal Fine Art Commission
Elizabeth Siddal, wife and model of artist/poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti and model for the painting Ophelia by John Everett Millais
Jean Simmons, actress
William Simpson, war artist and correspondent
Sir John Smale, Chief Justice of Hong Kong
Tom Smith, inventor of the Christmas cracker
Charles Green Spencer, pioneer aviator and balloon manufacturer
Alfred Stevens, sculptor, painter and designer
Walter Fryer Stocks, prolific landscape painter
Sir Henry Knight Storks, soldier, MP, and colonial administrator
Anna Swanwick, author and feminist who assisted in the founding of Girton College, Cambridge, and Somerville Hall, Oxford
Alfred Swaine Taylor, toxicologist, forensic scientist, expert witness
Frederick Tennyson, poet, older brother of Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Samuel Sanders Teulon, prolific Gothic Revival architect
Jeanette Threlfall, hymnwriter and poet
Charles Turner, mezzotint engraver who collaborated with J. M. W. Turner
Andrew Ure, Scottish physician known for his galvanism experimentation, founder of the University of Strathclyde
John Vandenhoff, leading Victorian actor
Henry Vaughan, art collector who gave one of Britain's most popular paintings, John Constable's The Hay Wain to the National Gallery
Emilie Ashurst Venturi, writer, translator and women's rights campaigner
Arthur Waley, translator and scholar of the Orient
George Wallis, First Keeper of the Fine Art Collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum
Mary Warner, actress and theatre manager
Augusta Webster, poet, dramatist, essayist, translator and advocate of women's suffrage
Henry White, lawyer and gifted landscape photographer
Brodie McGhie Willcox, founder of the P&O Shipping Line
Henry Willis, foremost organ builder of the Victorian era
Hugh Wilson, RAF test pilot
George Wombwell, menagerie exhibitor
Ellen Wood, author known as Mrs Henry Wood, there is also a plaque for her in Worcester Cathedral
Adam Worth, criminal mastermind. Possible inspiration for Sherlock Holmes's nemesis, Professor Moriarty; originally buried in a pauper's grave under the name Henry J. Raymond
Sir William Henry Wyatt, long-serving chairman of the Middlesex County Lunatic Asylum at Colney Hatch, Southgate
Patrick Wymark, actor
Arthur Wynn, British civil servant who ran a spy ring for the KGB
Joseph Warren Zambra, scientific instrument maker
East Cemetery
Many famous or prominent people are buried on this side of Highgate cemetery; the most famous of which is arguably that of Karl Marx, whose tomb was the site of attempted bombings on 2 September 1965 and in 1970. The tomb of Karl Marx is also a Grade I listed building for reasons of historical importance. Fireman's corner is a monument erected in the East Cemetery by widows and orphans of members of the London Fire Brigade in 1934. There are 97 firemen buried here. The monument is cared for by the Brigade's Welfare Section.
Notable East Cemetery interments
David Abbott, advertising executive and founder of Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO who was widely regarded as one of the finest copywriters of his generation.
Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and other novels
Mehmet Aksoy, press officer for the Kurdish YPG, killed by ISIS in 2017
Wilkie Bard, popular vaudeville and music hall entertainer and recording artist
Farzad Bazoft, journalist, executed by Saddam Hussein's regime
Jeremy Beadle, writer, television presenter and curator of oddities
Adolf Beck, the Adolph Beck case was a celebrated case of mistaken identity
Hercules Bellville, American film producer
William Betty, popular child actor of the early nineteenth century
Emily Blatchley, pioneering Protestant Christian missionary to China
Kate Booth, English Salvationist and evangelist. Oldest daughter of William and Catherine Booth. She was also known as la Maréchale
William Bradbury, printer and publisher and co-founder of Bradbury and Evans
Frederick Broome, colonial administrator of several British colonies. The Western Australian towns of Broome and Broomehill are named after him
Neave Brown, American-British architect
George Barclay Bruce, world renown railway engineer and president of the Institution of Civil Engineers
Sir Thomas Lauder Brunton, 1st Baronet, Scottish physician who is most closely associated with the treatment of angina pectoris
James Caird, Scottish agricultural writer and politician
Patrick Caulfield, painter and printmaker known for his pop art canvasses
Douglas Cleverdon, radio producer and bookseller
William Kingdon Clifford (with his wife Lucy), mathematician and philosopher
Lucy Lane Clifford, novelist and journalist, wife of William Kingdon Clifford
Yusuf Dadoo, South African anti-apartheid activist
Lewis Foreman Day, influential artist in the Arts and Crafts movement
Sir Davison Dalziel, Bt, British newspaper owner and Conservative Party politician. Massive mausoleum near the entrance.
Elyse Dodgson, theatre producer
Fritz Dupre, iron and manganese ore merchant, known as the "Manganese Ore King"
Francis Elgar, naval architect
George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans – the name on the grave is Mary Ann Cross), novelist, common-law wife of George Henry Lewes and buried next to him
Edwin Wilkins Field, lawyer who devoted much of his life to law reform
Paul Foot, campaigning journalist and nephew of former Labour Party leader Michael Foot
Lydia Folger Fowler, pioneering American physician and first American-born woman to earn a medical degree
William Foyle, co-founder of Foyles
William Friese-Greene, cinema pioneer and his son Claude Friese-Greene
Lou Gish, actress, daughter of Sheila Gish
Sheila Gish, actress
Philip Gould, British political consultant, and former advertising executive, closely linked to the Labour Party
Robert Grant VC, soldier and police constable
Robert Edmond Grant, Professor of Comparative Anatomy at University College London who gave his name to the Grant Museum of Zoology
Charles Green, the United Kingdom's most famous balloonist of the 19th century
Leon Griffiths, creator of Minder
Stuart Hall, Jamaican-born British Marxist sociologist, cultural theorist, and political activist
Harrison Hayter, railway, harbour and dock engineer
Mansoor Hekmat, Communist leader and founder of the Worker-Communist Party of Iran and Worker-Communist Party of Iraq
Eric Hobsbawm, historian
Austin Holyoake, printer, publisher, freethinker and brother of the more widely known George Holyoake
George Holyoake, Birmingham-born social reformer and founder of the Cooperative Movement
George Honey, popular Victorian actor and comedian
Alan Howard, actor
Leslie Hutchinson, Cabaret star of the 1920s and 1930s
Jabez Inwards, popular Victorian temperance lecturer and phrenologist
Georges Jacobi, composer and conductor
Bert Jansch, Scottish folk musician
Claudia Jones, Trinidadian born Communist and fighter for civil rights, founder of The West Indian Gazette and the Notting Hill Carnival
George Goodwin Kilburne, genre painter
David Kirkaldy, Scottish engineer and pioneer in materials testing
Anatoly Kuznetsov, Soviet writer, author of the document in the form of a novel, Babi Yar
Liza Lehmann, operatic soprano and composer, daughter of Rudolf Lehmann
Rudolf Lehmann, portrait artist and father of Liza Lehmann
Andrea Levy, novelist best known for the novels Small Island and The Long Song
George Henry Lewes, English philosopher and critic, common law husband of George Eliot and buried next to her.
Roger Lloyd-Pack, British actor known for Only Fools and Horses and The Vicar of Dibley
John Lobb, Society bootmaker
Charles Lucy, British artist, whose most notable painting was The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers
Haldane MacFall, art critic, art historian, book illustrator and novelist
Anna Mahler, sculptor and daughter of Gustav Mahler and Alma Schindler
Chris Martin, Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister
James Martineau, religious philosopher influential in the history of Unitarianism
Karl Marx, philosopher, historian, sociologist and economist (memorial after his reburial, with other family members)
Frank Matcham, theatre architect
Carl Mayer, Austro-German screenwriter of The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
Thomas McKinnon Wood, Liberal politician and Secretary of State for Scotland
Malcolm McLaren, punk impresario and original manager of the Sex Pistols
Ralph Miliband, left wing political theorist, father of David Miliband and Ed Miliband
Alan Milward, influential historian
William Henry Monk, composer (of the music to Abide with Me)
Charles Morton, music hall and theatre manager who became known as the Father of the Halls
Sidney Nolan, Australian artist
George Josiah Palmer, founder and editor of Church Times
Charles J. Phipps, theatre architect
Tim Pigott-Smith, actor
Dachine Rainer, poet and anarchist
Corin Redgrave, actor and political activist
Bruce Reynolds, criminal, mastermind of the Great Train Robbery (1963)
Ralph Richardson, actor
George Richmond, painter and portraitist
José Carlos Rodrigues, Brazilian journalist, financial expert, and philanthropist
Ernestine Rose, suffragist, abolitionist and freethinker
James Samuel Risien Russell, Guyanese-British physician, neurologist, professor of medicine, and professor of medical jurisprudence
Raphael Samuel, Marxist historian
Anthony Shaffer, playwright, screenwriter and novelist
Peter Shaffer, playwright and screenwriter
Sir Eyre Massey Shaw, first Chief Officer of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade
Alan Sillitoe, English postmodern novelist, poet, and playwright
James Smetham, Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood painter, engraver and follower of Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Sir Donald Alexander Smith, Canadian railway financier and diplomat
Herbert Spencer, evolutionary biologist, sociologist, and laissez-faire economic philosopher
Sir Leslie Stephen, critic, first editor of the Dictionary of National Biography, father of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell, members of the Bloomsbury Group
Julia Princep Stephen, Pre-Raphaelite model and mother of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell, members of the Bloomsbury Group.
William Heath Strange, physician and founder of the Hampstead General Hospital, now the Royal Free Hospital
Lucien Stryk, American poet, teacher and translator of Zen poetry
Thomas Tate, mathematician and scientific educator and writer
Sir George Thalben-Ball, English organist, choirmaster and composer
Bob Thoms, the greatest Victorian cricket umpire
James Thomson, Victorian poet, best known for The City of Dreadful Night
Storm Thorgerson, graphic designer
Malcolm Tierney, actor
Feliks Topolski, Polish-born British expressionist painter
Edward Truelove, radical publisher and freethinker
Peter Ucko, influential English archaeologist
Max Wall, comedian and entertainer
Simon Ward, actor
Peter Cathcart Wason, pioneering psychologist
Sir Lawrence Weaver, architectural writer, editor of Country Life and organiser of the British Empire Exhibition
Opal Whiteley, American writer
Colin St John Wilson, architect (most notably of the new British Library in London), lecturer and author
Joseph Wolf, natural history illustrator and pioneer in wildlife art
Edward Richard Woodham, survivor of the Charge of the Light Brigade
Michael Young, Baron Young of Dartington, politician, social activist and consumer champion.
War graves
The cemetery contains the graves of 318 Commonwealth service personnel maintained and registered by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, in both the East and West Cemeteries, 259 from the First World War and 59 from the Second. Those whose graves could not be marked by headstones are listed on a Screen Wall memorial erected near the Cross of Sacrifice in the west cemetery.
In popular culture
Highgate Cemetery was featured in the popular media from the 1960s to the late 1980s for its so-called occult past, particularly as being the alleged site of the "Highgate Vampire".
Several of John Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga novels refer to Highgate Cemetery as the last resting place of the Forsytes; for example, Chapter XI, "The Last of the Forsytes", in To Let (1921).
Footage of Highgate appears in numerous British horror films, including Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970), Tales from the Crypt (1972) and From Beyond the Grave (1974).
In Len Deighton's alternative history novel SS-GB and its TV adaptation, a bomb is detonated in the tomb of Karl Marx when his remains are exhumed by German occupation forces to be presented to the Soviet Union.
Audrey Niffenegger's book Her Fearful Symmetry (2009) is set around Highgate Cemetery; she acted as a tour guide there while researching the book.
In the novel Double or Die (2007), a part of the Young Bond series, Ludwig and Wolfgang Smith plan to kill Bond in the cemetery.
Tracy Chevalier's book Falling Angels (2002) was set in and around Highgate Cemetery.
The film Hampstead (2017) features some scenes in the cemetery.
Robert Galbraith's sixth Cormoran Strike-novel The Ink Black Heart evolves around a fictional cartoon set in Highgate Cemetery
Gallery
References
External links
Highgate Cemetery at the NY Times
1839 establishments in England
Anglican cemeteries in the United Kingdom
Cemeteries in London
Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries in England
Grade I listed buildings in the London Borough of Camden
Grade I listed monuments and memorials
Grade I listed parks and gardens in London
Highgate
Parks and open spaces in the London Borough of Camden