Wardsend Cemetery is a Victorian

cemetery A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek , "sleeping place") implies that the land is specifically designated as a buri ...

in the

Owlerton Owlerton () is a suburb of the city of Sheffield, it lies northwest of the city centre near the confluence of the River Don and River Loxley. Owlerton was formerly a small rural village with its origins in the Early Middle Ages; it became par ...

district of

Sheffield Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, consecrated by the

Archbishop of York The archbishop of York is a senior bishop in the Church of England, second only to the archbishop of Canterbury. The archbishop is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of York and the metropolitan bishop of the province of York, which covers th ...

in 1859 and closed to legal burial in 1968.

History

The ground on which the cemetery stands was originally purchased by John Livesey in 1857, the

Vicar A vicar (; Latin: ''vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English pref ...

of the nearby St. Philip's Church as an overspill burial ground.Jordan Lee Smith, ''A Crisis of Confidence: The Public Response to the 1862 Sheffield Resurrection Scandal'' (unpublished, 2013) The first burial at Wardsend was of a 2-year-old girl named Ann Marie Marsden in 1857. She is, in keeping with tradition, the "Guardian of the Cemetery". The graveyard is also noteworthy for being the final resting place of George Lambert, a highly decorated

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

soldier, for holding graves of many victims of the

Great Sheffield Flood The Great Sheffield Flood was a flood that devastated parts of Sheffield, England, on 11 March 1864, when the Dale Dyke Dam broke as its reservoir was being filled for the first time. At least 240 people died and more than 600 houses were da ...

of 1864, and being the only cemetery in Britain with an active railway line passing through it.

Sheffield Archives Sheffield Archives (located in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England) collects, preserves and lists records (or archives) relating to Sheffield and South Yorkshire and makes them available for reference and research. Sheffield Archives is a joint ...

offers much material on the history of the cemetery, perhaps most significantly a detailed narrative account of the 1862 riot and subsequent court hearings entitled ''Extraordinary Doings in a Cemetery in Sheffield'' by Ivor Haythorne,Ivor Haythorne, ''Extraordinary Doings in a Cemetery in Sheffield'' (unpublished, 1986). and a 2013 dissertation project (heavily influenced by the

history from below A people's history, or history from below, is a type of historical narrative which attempts to account for historical events from the perspective of common people rather than leaders. There is an emphasis on disenfranchised, the oppressed, the p ...

movement spearheaded by

E.P. Thompson Edward Palmer Thompson (3 February 1924 – 28 August 1993) was an English historian, writer, socialist and peace campaigner. He is best known today for his historical work on the radical movements in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, in ...

and

George Rudé George Rudé (8 February 1910 – 8 January 1993) was a British Marxist historian, specializing in the French Revolution and " history from below", especially the importance of crowds in history.George Rudé (1964). ''The Crowd in History. A St ...

) called ''Crisis of Confidence: The Public Response to the 1862 Sheffield Resurrection Scandal'' by Jordan Lee Smith.

1862 riot

On the evening of 3 June 1862 the cemetery was the location of a turbulent riot by angry Sheffield citizens, against accusations that the Reverend John Livesey and his sexton Isaac Howard were neglecting to bury corpses, and instead selling them to the town's medical school for use in anatomical dissection. The rumours were proven false and Livesey and Howard were instead fined by York

Assizes The courts of assize, or assizes (), were periodic courts held around England and Wales until 1972, when together with the quarter sessions they were abolished by the Courts Act 1971 and replaced by a single permanent Crown Court. The assizes e ...

for reusing graves in order to save space. However both were later paid compensation for the damage caused to their property during the riot, and Livesey was reinstated as the Vicar of St. Philip's Church. Today Livesey Street, now home to the Hillsborough campus of

The Sheffield College The Sheffield College is a large general further education college in Sheffield, England. The college has six campuses across the city and has 13,500 students enrolled (including 2,501 apprentices) as of 2021. It provides academic, technical an ...

as well as the back entrance to

Owlerton Stadium Owlerton Stadium, also known as Sheffield Stadium, is a purpose-built speedway track built in 1929 which also hosts greyhound racing The track is in Owlerton near Hillsborough in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. Greyhound racing takes pla ...

is named after the Reverend Livesey. A memorial stone at the nearby Walled Garden in

Hillsborough Park Hillsborough Park is a large () parkland area in Hillsborough, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. It is situated three miles north-westof the city centre. It owned by Sheffield City Council and is one of the 13 designated "City Parks". Histor ...

alludes to the unrest; it is a stone four feet long by 18 inches wide, designed to lie flat on the ground and cover a grave. The inscription reads:

Design

The cemetery was originally linked at its Hillsborough entrance by Wardsend Bridge, a two-arched stone structure built in the 18th century exclusively to provide access to the burial ground. However, after its destruction by the Sheffield floods on 25 June 2007 it was rebuilt as a wide single-span integral bridge at an estimated cost of £673,000 and re-opened in early 2009. The cemetery also contains an

obelisk An obelisk (; from grc, ὀβελίσκος ; diminutive of ''obelos'', " spit, nail, pointed pillar") is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape or pyramidion at the top. Originally constructed by Anc ...

dedicated to soldiers who died at Sheffield's

Hillsborough Barracks Hillsborough Barracks is a walled complex of buildings between Langsett Road and Penistone Road in the Hillsborough District of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. Early history The complex, which covers an area of circa , dates from 1848, re ...

, just down the road from the cemetery. There are also buried here a number of service personnel who died in the

First First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...

and

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

s but because their graves are now unmaintainable by the

Commonwealth War Graves Commission The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark, record and maintain the graves and places of commemoration of Commonwealth of Nations mil ...

their names are listed on a Screen Wall Memorial in Plot H of nearby

City Road Cemetery The City Road Cemetery is a cemetery in the City of Sheffield, England that opened in May 1881 and was originally Intake Road Cemetery. Covering it is the largest and is the head office for all the municipally owned cemeteries in Sheffield. ...

. Since its loss of status as a legal burial ground

Sheffield City Council Sheffield City Council is the city council for the metropolitan borough of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England. It consists of 84 councillors, elected to represent 28 wards, each with three councillors. It is currently under No Overall Contr ...

have done little to maintain the cemetery and it has fallen into neglect, save for the efforts of a conservation group the Friends of Wardsend Cemetery, who along with offering guided walks of the site, aim to cull the

Japanese knotweed ''Reynoutria japonica'', synonyms ''Fallopia japonica'' and ''Polygonum cuspidatum'', is a species of herbaceous perennial plant in the knotweed and buckwheat family Polygonaceae. Common names include Japanese knotweed and Asian knotweed. It is ...

that has overgrown the area.

References

External links

Jordan Lee Smith
in

Reflections on a first visit to Wardsend
{{coord, 53.40887, N, 1.49034, W, scale:5000_region:GB, display=title Cemeteries in Sheffield Anglican cemeteries in the United Kingdom 1859 establishments in England 1862 riots 1862 in England History of Sheffield History of South Yorkshire Battles and conflicts without fatalities Riots and civil disorder in England Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries in England