page_title: Old Protestant Cemetery (Macau)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Old Protestant Cemetery (Macau) / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Macau Protestant Chapel, also known as Morrison Chapel, on the grounds of the Old Protestant Cemetery in Macau.
context_page_description: The Old Protestant Cemetery is a cemetery in Santo António, Macau, China. It was established by the British East India Company in 1821 in Portuguese Macau in response to a lack of burial sites for Protestants in the Roman Catholic Portuguese colony.
  It is the last resting place of the artist George Chinnery, missionaries Robert Morrison and Samuel Dyer, Royal Navy captain Henry John Spencer-Churchill and US Naval Lieutenant Joseph Harod Adams. Humphrey Fleming Senhouse, a captain in the Royal Navy, is also buried here, as is John Robert Morrison, son of Robert Morrison, who was appointed as Acting Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong but died eight days later in Macau from fever. William Napier, 9th Lord Napier was buried in the cemetery but his body was subsequently exhumed and reburied in Scotland. Another grave is that of Anders Ljungstedt, a prosperous Swedish businessman, interpreter and historian.
  In 2005, the cemetery was officially enlisted as part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Historic Center of Macau.
context_section_description: Macau was considered by the Portuguese to be sacred Roman Catholic ground and the authorities barred the burial of Protestants within its city walls, whilst on the other side of the barrier gate the Chinese were equally as intolerant of the burial of foreigners in its soil.  This left the Protestant community of British, American and Northern European traders with the only option of a secret night-time burial in the land between the city walls and the barrier gate, and the risk of confrontation with Chinese should they be discovered, or worse, desecration of the grave once they had gone.
  The matter was finally resolved in 1821 after the death of Robert Morrison's wife, Mary, when the local committee of the East India Company voted to purchase a plot of land and resolve its legal status with the Portuguese such that the burial of Protestants would be permitted there.  Later, the East India Company allowed burial of all foreigners, and several graves were moved from other locations outside the city walls into the cemetery, explaining why some graves are dated before its founding in 1821.  Nationals of Britain, the United States of America, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Germany are buried there.
  The cemetery was closed in 1858, after which the cemetery began to be referred to as the "Old" Protestant Cemetery.
  Adjoining the cemetery is the Morrison Chapel, named in honour of Robert Morrison.
caption: Morrison Chapel
exif: {"Image Make": "EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY", "Image Model": "KODAK DX6490 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "230", "Image YResolution": "230", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "506", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2708", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6209", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/90", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:01:27 03:28:46", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:01:27 03:28:46", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "13/2", "EXIF ApertureValue": "3", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "63/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2304", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1536", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "2404", "EXIF ExposureIndex": "80", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "38", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}