Cemeteries of Birmingham
During the population explosion of the 18th and 19th centuries in Birmingham churchyards quickly became over-filled. In his 1781 History of Birmingham, William Hutton wrote of St Martin's Church that "the growth of the soil causes a low appearance to the building so that instead of the church burying the dead the dead will in time bury the church". Indeed, by 1873 the last churchyard had been closed to new burials. In order to solve the problem of space, the General Cemetery at Key Hill was built on what now covers twelve acres in 1836 by private shareholders and designed by Charles Edge. Twelve years later the eleven acre Church of England cemetery at Warstone Lane, adjacent to Key Hill in the Jewellery Quarter, was laid out in a park-like setting designed by JR Hamilton. Both were closed for burials in new plots in 1982. As the rapid spread of the town finally caught up with the Jewellery Quarter, the huge 102 acre municipal cemetery at Witton was opened in 1863. As a result of the Burials Act of the 1850s which permitted local authorities to establish their own independent burial sites, some of the parishes which were later incorporated into Birmingham had opened their own. Sutton Coldfield 1880, Yardley 1883 are Church of England; Lodge Hill Selly Oak, opened in 1895, has sections also for Catholics and Quakers; Brandwood End Kings Heath, opened in 1899 also has sections for non-conformists and a Jewish section was added in 1919; Handsworth Cemetery was opened in 1909 and Quinton in 1923. It should also be remembered when searching for your ancestors in these places that workhouses had their own burial grounds for the poor.
Scott's Burial Ground was established in 1779 for dissenters by Joseph Scott. It closed in 1878 and the bodies were reinterred at Witton and Key Hill Cemeteries. Catholic dead were buried from 1786 onwards at St Peter's in Broad Street, but have now been reinterred, most likely at Witton, as was also the fate of Baptists originally buried at The Friends' and New Baptist Meeting Houses. Jewish cemeteries were situated at Granville Street (The Froggery) from 1783 and later in a passage named Betholom Row between Bath Row and Islington Row, consecrated in 1823. The original Jews' Burial Ground disappeared in 1845 with the building of the railway and New Street Station. The bodies from Betholom Row were later reinterred in the Jewish section of Witton Cemetery which was added in 1869.
For enquiries at Witton Cemetery contact: Links
[ See also Joseph Mckenna's In the Midst of Life, Birmingham Central Library 1992 ] | |||
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