page_title: Woking Crematorium
section_title: Cremations
hierarchical_section_title: Woking Crematorium / Cremations
caption_attribution_description: English: The Office at Woking Crematorium
context_page_description: Woking Crematorium is a crematorium in Woking, a large town in the west of Surrey, England. Established in 1878, it was the first custom-built crematorium in the United Kingdom and is closely linked to the history of cremation in the UK.
context_section_description: Among those cremated here are:
  Maud Naftel, died 1890, watercolour flower painter
  Helena Blavatsky, died 1891, founder of the Theosophical Society (ashes given to the Theosophical Society)
  Mathilde Blind, died 1896, writer (ashes placed in a monument in St Pancras Cemetery)
  Samuel Butler, died 1902, novelist (ashes buried, or scattered, at Woking Crematorium)
  Edward Frederick Crippin, died 1892, businessman
  John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry, died 1900 (ashes buried at Kinmount, Dumfriesshire)
  Friedrich Engels, died 1895, philosopher (ashes scattered off Beachy Head, Sussex)
  John Galsworthy, died 1933, novelist and playwright (ashes scattered on South Downs)
  Hugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster, died 1899 (ashes buried at St Mary's Church, Eccleston, Cheshire)
  Thomas Hardy, died 1928, writer (ashes buried at Westminster Abbey, heart at St Michael's Church, Stinsford, Dorset)
  Florence Hardy (née Dugdale), died  1937, writer, widow of Thomas Hardy (ashes buried at St Michael's Church, Stinsford, Dorset)
  William Ernest Henley, died 1903, poet (ashes buried at Cockayne Hatley, Bedfordshire)
  Ralph King-Milbanke, 2nd Earl of Lovelace, died 1906, author
  Eleanor Marx, died  1898 (ashes buried next to her father's grave at Highgate Cemetery in London in 1956)
  Rick Parfitt, died 2016, guitarist with Status Quo
  Francis Russell, 9th Duke of Bedford, died  1891 (ashes buried at St. Michael’s Church, Chenies, Buckinghamshire)
  Elizabeth Russell, Duchess of Bedford, died 1897 (ashes buried at St. Michael’s Church, Chenies, Buckinghamshire)
  Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden,  died 1937 (ashes scattered on Cowling Moor near Ickornshaw, Yorkshire)
  George Tomline, died 1889, politician (ashes sent to London)
  Alan Turing, died 1954, known as father of computer science (ashes scattered at Woking Crematorium)
  Beatrice Webb, died 1943, labour historian and social reformer (ashes buried at Westminster Abbey in 1947)
  Thirteen holders of the Victoria Cross are recorded to have been cremated here.
  There were 135 Commonwealth service personnel from both World Wars cremated here.  A memorial panel fixed onto the wall of the columbarium by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission lists the names. Numbers after some entries indicate niches in the columbarium, in other cases the ashes were scattered.
caption: The Office at Woking Crematorium
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