Hitchin Cemetery, also known as St John's Road Cemetery, is the main burial ground for the town of Hitchin in Hertfordshire. The cemetery is located on Hitchin Hill, with Standhill Road running along the north-western boundary and St. John's Road along the south-eastern boundary. It has been owned and managed by

North Hertfordshire District Council North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north'' is ...

since 1974 and has a Chapel which can accommodate about 50 mourners which is available for the burial of all faiths.

History

As a result of two cholera epidemics in England during the 19th century a large number of public cemeteries were created across the country during the 1850s and 1860s. Hitchin Local Board of Health appointed a Burial Board to create the cemetery using funds from the Borough Rate under the Burial Act of 1853; the main body of the cemetery was laid out by George Beaver and opened in 1857, with the Lodge Cottage and Chapel being built in the same year. It was passed to Hitchin Urban District Council in 1894 and to

in 1974. The Chapel originally contained both Anglican and Non-Conformist chapels, positioned at right angles to each other. The burial ground extension to the south-west of Cemetery Road opened in 1879. The total cost for the cemetery was a little over £3000. Cemetery Road, which today bisects the two sections of the cemetery, was built in 1871 at a cost of £986.The History of Hitchin Cemetery - Countryside Management Service website
/ref> The opening ceremony took place on 3 May 1857, with the Anglican area being consecrated by George Murray, the Bishop of Rochester (Hitchin then being under the

Diocese of Rochester The Diocese of Rochester is a Church of England diocese in the English county of Kent and the Province of Canterbury. The cathedral church of the diocese is Rochester Cathedral in the former city of Rochester. The bishop's Latin episcopal signa ...

), while the first burial with a tombstone was that of William Morgan in 1857. The Delmé-Radcliffe Family, who owned

Hitchin Priory Hitchin Priory in Hitchin in Hertfordshire is today a hotel built in about 1700 on the site of a Carmelites, Carmelite Priory, friary founded in 1317, which was closed in the Dissolution of the Monasteries during the reign of Henry VIII of England ...

from 1548 to 1965, have a burial plot near the Lodge Cottage. The cemetery covers approximately 5.64

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100- metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is ...

s in total, divided into three separate sections based on the age of the burials. To the southwest is the newest part of the cemetery which is separated from the older parts by Cemetery Road. The oldest part of the cemetery is by the Chapel in the north-eastern third of the site (approximately 1.46ha). There are a large proportion of unmarked graves in the main body of the cemetery which are believed to be pauper, children and

workhouse In Britain, a workhouse () was an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. (In Scotland, they were usually known as poorhouses.) The earliest known use of the term ''workhouse' ...

inmate graves. The cemetery holds 59 war graves registered and maintained 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 m ...

, 31 Commonwealth service personnel from

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and 26 Commonwealth service personnel and two German Air Force personnel from

World War II 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 opposing ...

Notable burials

* Edward Chapman (1804-1880), publisher who with William Hall founded the publishers

Chapman & Hall Chapman & Hall is an Imprint (trade name), imprint owned by CRC Press, originally founded as a United Kingdom, British publishing house in London in the first half of the 19th century by Edward Chapman (publisher), Edward Chapman and William Hall ...

. * Mary Angela Dickens (1862-1948), novelist and oldest grandchild of

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

.Christodoulou, Glenn A.
'The Grave of Mary Angela Dickens Rediscovered'
– ''The Dickensian'', Published by The Dickens Fellowship Spring 2013 No. 489 Vol. 109 Part 1 ISSN 0012-2440 pgs 42–43 *

Henry Barclay Swete Henry Barclay Swete (14 March 1835 in Bristol – 10 May 1917 in Hitchin) was an English biblical scholar. He became Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge in 1890. He is known for his 1906 commentary on the ''Book of Revelation'', and oth ...

(1835-1917), Biblical scholar and Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge from 1890 to 1915.

Gallery

Image:Hitchin Cemetery Chapel 1.jpg, The Chapel at Hitchin Cemetery Image:Hitchin Cemetery Lodge.jpg, The Cemetery Lodge Cottage Image:Hitchin Cemetery New 1.jpg, The entrance to the new section Image:Mary Angela Dickens grave.jpg, Grave of Mary Angela Dickens (foreground)

References

External links

Hitchin Cemetery
on Find a Grave
Monumental Inscriptions - Hitchin Cemetery, Hertfordshire
{{coord, 51.944, -0.273, display=title Hitchin Cemeteries in Hertfordshire Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries in England 1857 establishments in England