Streatham Cemetery
Streatham Cemetery is a cemetery on Garratt Lane in Tooting, London; it is one of three cemeteries managed by Lambeth London Borough Council, the others being West Norwood Cemetery and Lambeth Cemetery. Both Streatham and Lambeth Cemeteries are located within the London Borough of Wandsworth.[1]
History
Under the Metropolitan Burial Act of 1852, which followed the second cholera epidemic of 1848–49, the Streatham Burial Board acquired the land for a cemetery in what was countryside at the time. The cemetery opened for burials in 1894 and was provided with two lodges and two mirror-image chapels built in the Gothic style by William Newton Dunn.[2] The cemetery was subjected to extensive "lawn conversion" from 1969 to 1991 and many monuments were removed. No new graves are available in the cemetery but burial in existing family plots is allowed.[3]
The cemetery has a large number of burials of casualties from World War I (218) and World War II (167) which are maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.[4][5]
Notable burials
- Sir Wyke Bayliss (1835–1906), artist, author and poet[6]
- Edward Foster VC (1886–1946), recipient of the Victoria Cross during World War I[7]
- Frederick Hackwood (1851–1926), antiquarian
- Jan Kwapiński (1885–1964), Polish independence activist and politician
- Jane Roberts (c. 1819–1914), First Lady of Liberia[8]
- Charlie Wilson (1932–1990), one of the gang who committed the Great Train Robbery of 1963[9]
References
- ^ Streatham Cemetery on the Lambeth London Borough Council website
- ^ History of Streatham Cemetery – Friends of Streatham Cemetery website
- ^ Environmental, Historical and Cultural Significance of Cemeteries in Lambeth – House of Commons Publications
- ^ Streatham Cemetery – Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) database
- ^ Streatham Cemetery on Traces of War
- ^ Court News, The Times, 10 April 1906
- ^ Edward Foster VC – Victoria Cross database
- ^ Gates, Henry Louis and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham (2008). The African American National Biography: Moore, Lenny-Romain. p. 621.
- ^ Douglas Greenwood, Who's Buried Where in England, Constable, London (2006) p. 345 ISBN 978-1-84529-305-5