Burial grounds: churchyards and cemeteries
1843
A committee reported in 1843 that every churchyard in the City of Oxford was full. (Oxford at this time did not include the present-day suburbs of Cowley and Headington, while Botley was not even in the same county.)
There were at this time 15 churches in Oxford, of which 13 were ancient and two (St Paul’s and Summertown) relatively new:
All Saints, High Street |
St Giles |
St Mary the Virgin |
The need for new burial grounds became more and more urgent, but the clergy opposed the opening of a general cemetery open to all creeds, and so Oxford had to wait nearly fifty years for its first municipal cemetery.
1848
Three new parish cemeteries were consecrated:
- Osney Cemetery (Wikipedia) for the ancient parishes of St Aldate, St Ebbe, St Peter-le-Bailey, and St Thomas
- Holywell Cemetery (Wikipedia) for the ancient parishes of St John the Baptist, St Martin, St Mary the Virgin, and St Peter-in-the-East
- St Sepulchre’s Cemetery in Jericho for the ancient parishes of St Giles, St Mary Magdalen, and St Michael-at-the-Northgate, and for the new district chapelry of St Paul
1855
Orders in council instructed that burials should cease in
- all the ancient parish churchyards listed above (except in existing vaults or walled graves)
- the graveyards of the Roman Catholic, Baptist, Wesleyan, and Congregational chapels
- the workhouse
- the Radcliffe Infirmary
- the castle gaol.
In addition, burials in Holywell, St Sepulchre and Osney cemeteries (all of which had only opened seven years earlier) and in Summertown churchyard were only to take place in plots already reserved.
1876
The Cemetery Committee of the Local Board reported that the above orders of 1855 could not be complied with, and that St Thomas’s and St Clement’s churchyards were still being used occasionally. As a result the Local Board was constituted a Burial Board, and negotiations started to purchase land from Christ Church at Rose Hill.
1878
St Mary & St John churchyard was consecrated in 1878, and this would have eased the problem slightly in east Oxford
1880
An article in the New York Times of 8 May 1887 stated that the “disgraceful state of St Sepulchre's Cemetery”, where bones of people buried thirty or fewer years before were lying around on the surface of newer graves, was “the latest scandal at Oxford”.
1889–1892
In 1889 the new Oxford Corporation bought the following land for two new municipal cemeteries outside the city, and both were dedicated in 1892 under the Interments Act:
- Rose Hill Cemetery (11 acres)
- Wolvercote Cemetery at Cutteslowe (13 acres)
In 1890 it bought the following land for a third municipal cemetery, which was dedicated in the same year:
- Botley Cemetery (8 acres)
1929
When Headington was taken into Oxford in 1929, Headington Cemetery, which had opened in 1885 and had hitherto been run by Headington Parish Council, became a public burial ground for the whole city.
1939
Oxford Crematorium opened in Bayswater Lane in Stanton St John (now called Bayswater Road and part of Headington)
Oxford City Cemeteries Service
This covers the four municipal cemeteries (Botley, Headington,Rose Hill, and Wolvercote)