Brompton Cemetery

Image right - Memorial in Brompton Cemetery

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Brompton Cemetery, consecrated by the Bishop of London in June 1840, is one of the Britain's oldest garden cemeteries. The cemetery is Grade I Listed on the English Heritage Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. The 39-acre site lies between Old Brompton and Fulham Roads, on the western border of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

Bromton Cemetery is one of "The "Magnificent Seven" Cemeteries in London- an informal term applied to seven large cemeteries in London. They were established in the 19th century to alleviate overcrowding in existing parish burial grounds.

The principal buildings were designed by Benjamin Baud, under the influence of royal architect Sir Jeffry Wyatville. Time, money and strong opinions conspired against the completion of Baud's grand design, but the site still embodies the vision of the cemetery as an open air cathedral, with the tree-lined Central Avenue as its nave, and the domed Chapel, in honey-coloured Bath Stone, as its high altar. The Chapel, colonnades and Brompton Road gate are all now Grade II Listed.

There are about 35,000 monuments, from simple headstones to mortuary chapels, marking about 205,000 burials. Of these monuments, 27 are Grade II Listed, and one — the Leyland tomb by Edward Burne-Jones – is Grade II.

Brompton was closed to burials between 1952 and 1996, but is once again a working cemetery, with plots for interments and a Garden of Remembrance for the deposit of cremated remains.

Reference: http://www.brompton-cemetery.org/

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People buried in Brompton Cemetery

12 recipients of the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest award for military gallantry, are buried at Brompton Cemetery.

Find a Grave - list of 1 013 interments

A

• Dame Emma Albani (1847-1930) Opera Singer. A soprano of wide repertoire, she sang the works of composers ranging from Mozart and Rossini to Wagner. Born Marie-Louise-Emma-Cecile Lajeunesse into a musical family, she was raised from a toddler in Plattsburgh, New York, but returned to Montreal following her mother's 1856 death.
• Alexander Anderson (1807-1877) British Army Major General.
• Tomasz Arciszewski (1877-1955) Polish Prime minister. He was a member of the Polish Socialist Party and Prime Minister of the Polish goverment-in-exile in London from 1944 to 1947.
• James Atkinson - surgeon, artist and Persian scholar
• William Edward Ayrton - British Physicist and electrical engineer. He is associated with inventing electrical measuring instruments including the spiral-spring ammenter and the wattmeter and worked on railway electrification, producing the dynometer and electric searchlight.

B

• Samuel Baker (1821-1893) Explorer. Born in London, the son of a West India Company merchant, he was educated in England and Germany. In 1846, he travelled to Ceylon (Sri Lanka), where he established a agricultural settlement at Nuwara Ellya. He brought in settlers from England along with cattle and published books on hunting
• Effie Marie Bancroft (1840-1921) Actress. Theatre Manager. Wife of Sir Squire Bancroft (below), born Effie Marie Wilton in Doncaster, Yorkshire, England, the daughter of actors, she appeared on the stage with her parents throughout her childhood. She made her London debut in 1856 at the Lyceum Theatre in ‘Belphegor.'
• Sir Squire Bancroft (1841-1926) Actor. Theatre Manager. Born Squire White Butterfield in Rotherhithe, Southwark, London, he was educated privately in England and France. He made his stage debut in Birmingham in 1861.
• William Banting (1797-1878) Author. He was an undertaker and furnisher of funerals, who had a parlour in St. James's Street in London. His best-known commission was to build the Duke of Wellington's coffin.
• Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh - Russian Orthodox émigré metropolitan archbishop and author
• Joseph Bonomi the Younger (1796-1878) Draftsman, Egyptologist, sculptor, artist and museum curator. Born Joseph Bonomi the Younger, in London, son of architect, Joseph Bonomi the Elder. He studied in Rome before accepting a position with an expedition to Egypt in 1824.
• George Borrow (1803-1881) British Author, taveller and linguist. He wrote novels and travelogues based on his own experiences around Europe, where he developed a close affinity with nomadic gypsies. His best-known book was perhaps "Lavengro".
• Fanny Brawne - John Keats' muse. She is buried under her married name, Frances Lindon.
• Sir James Browne (1839-1896) - engineer, British Army Officer. Born in Scotland, he was educated at Addiscombe Military College and received a commission in the Bengal Engineers. In 1875, he became superintendent of works for the building of the Indus Bridge. In 1877, he was promoted Lieutenant Colonel and took part in the second Anglo-Afghan War, receiving the Companion of the Bath (CB).
• Francis Trevelyan Buckland - Surgeon, popular author, natural historian and zoologist,
• Henry James Byron (1835-1884) British Dramatist and actor. He is best-known for producing stage plays in the mid-nineteenth century and wrote popular burlesques and peroidicals.

C

• General * William Martin Cafe (1826-1906) - Indian Mutiny hero and VC recipient. Served as a General in the 56th Bengal Native Infantry. He was awarded his medal for service during The Indian Mutiny on April 15, 1858.
• Marchesa Luisa Casati (1881-1957) Infamous Italian quaintrelle, muse, eccentric and patron of the arts. Art Patroness. Born into a wealthy family in Italy, she sponsored and inspired some of the most noted artists and authors of her time, notably in France. A scintillating eccentric, she became notorious for her lavish parties and such habits as walking her pet leopards on diamond-studded leashes. After thirty years of extravagance she became heavily in debt and was forced to move to England, where she died in poverty.
• John Graham Chambers - founder of the Amateur Athletic Association
• Charles Coborn (1852-1945) Actor, Singer and Comedian. Born Colin Whitton McCallum in the Mile End of London, he made his first music hall appearances in 1872 and established himself as a coster comedian for over seventy years, appearing in theatres both in the UK and USA and appeared in films. Charles Coborn was also an active campaigner for the improvement of music hall working conditions and was largely responsible for forming the Music Hall Artists' Association in 1885 and later the Music Hall Benevolent Fund. His two most famous songs were 'Two Lovely Black Eyes' and 'The Man Who Broke The Bank At Monte Carlo' which was written by Fred Gilbert.
• Henry Cole - founder of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Royal Albert Hall, the Royal College of Music, the 1851 Great Exhibition and inventor of the Christmas card
• Charles Allston Collins (1828-1873) Arist, Author. Born in Hampstead, North London, he was the second son of William Collins, R.A., who is buried in St, Mary's Church in Paddington Green. Like his elder brother, the author William Wilkie Collins, Charles was named after a painter, Washington Allston of Massachussetts. He studied at the Royal Academy Schools and, in 1847, exhibited two portraits at the Royal Academy. Collins was proposed for membership of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood by Millais, and was supported by Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and F.G. Stephens, but Thomas Woolner and W.M. Rossetti objected to his joining the Brotherhood, and he was rejected.
• Robert Coombes (1808-1860) Champion professional sculler. Oarsman. Born to a London waterman, a guild that traditionally ferried passengers across the Thames, he had been on the water from an early age. By the mid 19th century sculling races became a popular spectator sport, attracting huge crowds and a great deal of money at races on the Thames and the Tyne Rivers.
• Joseph Thomas Clover - pioneer of anaesthesia
• Sir Daniel Cooper (1821-1902) Australian Statesman. He was the first speaker of the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales and a noted philatelist. His parents immigrated to Sydney when he was a child, but sent him to England in 1835 to study at the University College, London. He began his business career at Auburn, but returned to Pratville in 1843, where he formed D. Cooper and Company, and purchased property in Pratville and the surrounding area.
• Thomas Crofton Croker - Irish antiquary, devoted to the collection of Irish poetry and folkore
• William Crookes - chemist and physicist
• Samuel Cunard Sir Samuel Cunard, 1st Baronet (21 November 1787 – 28 April 1865) was a British shipping magnate, born at Halifax, Nova Scotia, who founded the Cunard Line. He was the son of a master carpenter and timber merchant who had fled the American Revolution and settled in Halifax.
• Thomas Cundy III - British Architect, creator of England's main public buildings, also recorded as Thomas de Candie III.

D

• Oscar Veniah Dayton (1827-1898) Birth: Jul. 1, 1827; Death: Oct. 30, 1898. Civil War Union Brevet Brigadier General. Served in the Civil War first as Lieutenant Colonel and commander of the 62nd New York Volunteer Infantry. After his wounding in battle, he was transferred to the Veterans Reserve Corps, where he was first Lieutenant Colonel of the 1st VRC, then Colonel and commander of the 19th VRC. He was brevetted Brigadier General, US Volunteers on March 13, 1865 for "faithful and meritorious services".

F

• Corporal Joseph John Farmer (1855-1930) British Victoria Cross War Medal Recipient. Served as a Corporal in the Army Hospital Corps. He was awarded his medal for service at Majuba Hill, South Africa, on February 27, 1881.
• Terence Feely - playwright and author
• Captain Alfred Kirke Ffrench - British Victoria Cross War Medal Recipient. Served as a Captain in the 53rd Regiment, later The King's Shropshire Light Infantry. He was awarded his medal for service during The Indian Mutiny on November 16, 1857.
• Tom Foy (1879-1917) Music Hall Performer. Born in Manchester, England he served an apprenticeship as a sign painter. Apparently bored, he joined a traveling circus as a scenery artist and clown. He made his first music hall appearance as a lightning cartoonist.
• Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Craufurd Fraser - British Victoria Cross Medal Recipient. During the revolt in India known as the Indian Mutiney War for indenpendence, he served as a Major in the 7th Hussars. On June 13, 1858, the 3rd and 4th Squadrons of the 7th Hussars were in an engagement with hostiles on the River Raptee Oudh, India. When one of the squadrons was cut off in the attack, a Captain with three other men were wounded and pinned down on a small bank in the middle of the river. Assured of certain death if they remained on the sand bank, Major Fraser swam to the men under constant musket fire, returning fire with his revolver and succeeded in the rescue of the trapped men. For gallantry under fire, he was awarded the Victoria Cross in December 1858. He remained in the service obtained the rank of Major General, became a member of Parliament in 1885 and was Knighted in 1890.
• Charles Fremantle - founded the Swan River Colony (Western Australia)
• Robert Fortune - Scottish Botanist who introduced tea plant from China to India

G

• Brian Glover (1934-1997) Television and film actor. His TV roles included parts in "Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads," "Porridge," "Minder," "Dixon of Dock Green," and "Return of the Saint." He also appeared in a large number of films including "Alien3," "The Great Train Robbery," "Company of Wolves," and "Leon the Pig Farmer."
• John William Godward - Artist. Born of a wealthy family who disapproved of his vocation of art, Godward was shy and reclusive, so very little is known of his life. A Victorian Classicist painter, he was a member of the so-called "Marble School," followers of Lawrence Alma-Tadema whose work concentrated almost exclusively on Classical Grecian or Roman subjects, such as women in draping robes on marble terraces.
• George Godwin (1815-1888) architect, journalist, and editor of The Builder magazine. Wrote two volumes on the churches of London, and two that deplored sanitary conditions that led to early death among the poor.
• George Goldie - "founded" Nigeria

H

• Corporal Thomas Hancock - Indian Mutiny Victoria Cross Recipient.
• Augustus Glossop Harris (1825-1873) Theatrical Producer. Born to a theatrical family, became a leading manager of opera and ballet, notably at Covent Garden, London, but also in Paris, Berlin and St. Petersburg
• John Harrison - Royal Navy - Indian Mutiny British Victoria Cross Medal Recipient. He served as a Boatswain's Mate in the Royal Navy Naval Brigade.
• Thomas Helmore - choirmaster and author of books on plainsong
• - G A Henty (1832-1902) British Author. Noted for his stories for boys.
• Colonel William Hope (1834-1909) Crimea War Victoria Cross War Medal Recipient. He served as a Lieutenant in the 7th Regiment, Royal Fusiliers.

I

J

• John Jackson (1769-1845) Boxing Pioneer. Dubbed "Gentleman John", he was a celebrated English bare-knuckle pugilist of the late 18th Century.
• Geraldine Jewsbury - writer

K

• Mary Anne Keeley - actress
• Robert Keeley - actor and comedian
• William Claude Kirby - first chairman of Chelsea Football Club

L

• Constant Lambert, (1905-1951) Composer, Conductor, Critic. The son of painter George Lambert, he was born in London and studied at the Royal College of Music. At age 20 he became the youngest composer to receive a commission from Diaghilev's Ballet Russes, for the ballet "Romeo and Juliet" (1926), but he so disliked its flippantly chic presentation he threatened to withdraw the score.
• Kit Lambert (1935-1981) Christopher Sebastian "Kit" Lambert, music producer and original manager of The Who
• George W T Lambert (1873-1930) Artist. Born in Russia to American/English parents, he settled in Australia and during the 1910's and 1920's was that country's most celebrated painter. Lambert was particularly noted for his World War I scenes (he accompanied Australian forces on their ill-fated Gallipoli campaign in 1915) and portraits, painted in a conservative manner.
• Percy E. Lambert (1880-1913) Auto Racer. Born in London, England, he was British pioneer auto racer. On February 15, 1913, in the Talbot, England, he was the first man in auto history to cover over a 100 miles in one hour. Eight months later while attempting a land speed record at Brooklands Motor Racing Track, he was killed when a rear tire disintegrated at over 110mph.
• Nat Langham (1820-1871) Prizefighter. He was best known as an English middleweight bare knuckle prizefighter and is attributed with being the only opponent to have beaten the legendary fighter Thomas Sayers. Louis Thomas Gunnis Leonowens (1856-1919) Son of Anna Leonowens (q.v.) of 'Anna and the King of siam' fame. Came to Siam with his mother in 1862. Later returned there (from Canada where his mother had settled)and became a captain in the King's cavalry, before entering the teak trade.
• Frederick Richards Leyland (1831-1892) Liverpool shipowner and art collector. President of the National Telephone Company. Patron of Pre-Raphaelites (his tomb is an excellent example of Pre-Raphaelite sculpture).
• Bernard Levin - journalist, author and broadcaster
• Ralph Robert Wheeler "Baron Lingen" Lingen (1819-1905) Secretary of the government Education Office and played a leading role in the extension of public education in the Victorian era.
• Marie Lohr - Actress
• Archibald M Low (1888-1956) Inventor and author of science books. Electrical engineer: created one of the first guided missile systems in 1917.

M

• Sir John MacNeill (1793-1880) Civil engineer. MacNeill served as Thomas Telford's chief assistant for 10 years, eventually succeeding Telford as Chief Engineer on the massive London-Holyhead road project. When Telford died in 1834, MacNeill established his own consultancy, based in both London and Glasgow, and turned his attention towards the growing technology of the railways. His first projects were freight schemes in the Scottish coal and ironfields near Wishaw and Motherwell.
• Frederick Henry Maitland (1840-1924) 13th Earl of Lauderdale.
• General Sir Frederick Francis Maude (1821-1897) Crimea Victoria Cross Medal Recipient. He served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the 3rd Regiment of Foot, British Army.
• Henry McGee - actor
• Henry Augustus Mears - founder of Chelsea Football Club
• Albert Mellon (1821-1867) Orchestral conductor who had just accepted conductorship of the Liverpool Philharmonic when he died at age 46.
• Augustus Antoine Meves (1785-1859) French Folk Figure. Born in France and raised in England with his adoptive mother, Meves claimed to have been the Dauphin of France, Louis, the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. He purported to have been swapped for the child of his mother's great friend and spirited to England to be raised in safety. In 1876, his son Auguste de Bourbon, published a book entitled ‘The Dauphin Louis XVII, King of France, His Deliverence From the Tower of the Temple at Paris, Adoption, and Subsequent Career in England' detailing his father's claims. Louis Napoleon was said to have believed Meves was actually the hereditary King of France.
• Lionel Monckton (1864–1924) composer of Edwardian Musical Comedies & music critic for the Daily Telegraph.
• Sir Charles Carmichael Monro (1860-1929) World War I British Army General. He oversaw the allied retreat from Gallipoli. Monro trained at Sandhurst before joining the Queen's Royal Regiment in 1881. He served in the Boer War before returning to England in 1901 to become Commandant of the Army School of Musketry at Hythe.
• Henrietta Moraes - writer, artist's model and muse to Francis Bacon
• Roderick Murchison - geologist, originator of the Silurian system

N

• Adelaide Neilson "Miss Neilson" 1848-1880) English actress Lilian Adelaide Neilson was a 19th century English actress largely remembered for her Shakesperean roles. She was said by many of her contemporaries to be 'the Juliet of her day'. Born Elizabeth Ann Brown at 35 St. Peters Square, Leeds to an unmarried former actress, Elizabeth Anne grew up in relative poverty, initially in Skipton and later Guiseley, West Yorkshire.
• William Gustavus Nicholson, 1st Baron Nicholson (1845-1918) Field Marshal Lord Nicholson, 1st Baron Nicholson, served as Field Marshal of the British Army and as First Chief of the Imperial General Staff (1908-1912).
• Matthew Noble (1818-1876) Sculptor of Victorian bishops, aristocrats and members of the Royal Family; also of the statue of Isaac Barrow (q.v.) in Trinity College, Cambridge.

O

• Eugène Oudin - American baritone
• Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan - Anglo-Irish writer

P

• Sir William Palliser - Inventor and builder of Barons Court
• Emmeline Pankhurst - Britain's leading suffragette
• Private Samuel Parkes (1815-1864) Crimean War Victoria Cross Medal Recipient. He served as a Private in the Queen's Own 4th Light Dragoons.
• Charles henry Pearson (1830-1894) Author, Educator, Politician. He was educated at Rugby School, King's College, London and Oriel College Oxford. He was soon forced to abandon his medical career due to ill health, and in 1855 became professor of modern history at King's College. He travelled widely, publishing an account of his journeys to Russia in 1859 under the title "Russia, by a recent traveller". He was in Poland during the insurrection of 1863, and wrote an account of his experiences in the "Spectator". He also contributed regularly to the "Saturday Review" and was editor of the "National Review". He was the author of several historical works, including "History of England During the Early and Middle Ages" (1868) and "Maps of England in the First Thirteen Centuries" (1870).
• ohann Christoph Pepusch (1667-1752) Birth: 1667 Death: Jul. 20, 1752

Composer. Born in Berlin, a son of a Protestant clergyman, Pepusch [also known in England as John Christopher] was appointed to the Prussian Court at the age of 14. He was a prolific composer of theatrical music, church music and instrumental works. In 1700 he moved to London where he was first employed as a viola player and later as harpsichordist at the Drury Lane Theatre.

• Sir John Lysaght Pennefather - British general
• [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=12453 Henry Pettitt) (1848-1893) Playwright who co-authored melodramas with such titles as "In the Ranks" & "A Woman's Revenge."
• Lillian Mary Lucy Pettitt (d. 1879) Daughter of Henry Pettitt. He was a playwright who co-authored melodramas with such titles as "In the Ranks" & "A Woman's Revenge."
• Percy Sinclair Pilcher - inventor and pioneering aviator
• George Pravda (1918-1985) Actor. His career began with Prague's "Realistic Theatre" company, where he appeared under the name Jiri Pravda. He was fluent in six languages, which aided his escape from soviet rule on false papers after the end of World War II. He went first to France and then to Australia, where he helped establish the "Tana" theatre company. His work there was noticed by Dame Sybil Thorndike, who wrote him letters of introduction to Hugh "Binkie" Beaumont and Sir John Gielgud, making it possible for him to move to England in 1956.
• Hana Maria Pravda (1918-2008) Actress, Director, Author. She made her screen debut as Hana Beck at age seventeen in "Mariika the Unfaithful" (1934), which was soon followed by leading roles in several Czechoslovakian movies. She then went to Leningrad, to study drama under the Russian director Alexei Dikii, and while there witnessed Stalin's purges of 1936 to 1937. After returning to Czechoslovakia, she moved to the country town of Potstein in the hope of escaping anti Jewish prejudice, but in 1942 was sent to the Terezin ghetto near Prague. While there she became a leading figure in the ghetto's Freigist theatre group, performing from scripts smuggled in from outside. She was sent to Auschwitz in 1944, and then to Birnbaumel, she finally escaped in 1945 while on a forced march to Bergen-Belsen death camp. She eventually returned to Prague, where she joined the "Realistic Theatre" company before escaping communist rule on forged papers. She went first to France and then Australia, where she formed the "Tana" theatre company. Her work there was noticed by Dame Sybil Thorndike, who wrote letters of introduction for her to Hugh "Binkie" Beaumont and Sir John Gielgud, which enabled her to live and work in England.
• Valentine Cameron Prinsep - Pre-Raphaelite painter

R

• William Henry Macleod Read - political and social activist and merchant
• Richard Redgrave (1804–1888), subject and landscape painter, second son of William Redgrave, and younger brother of Samuel Redgrave
• Fanny Ronalds - American socialite and singer
• Blanche Roosevelt - American opera singer and author
• Tim Rose - American singer-songwriter
• William Howard Russell - journalist and war correspondent

S

• William Siborne - Army officer and military historian, maker of the Siborne model
• Samuel Smiles - biographer and inventor of "self-help"
• Albert Richard Smith - writer
• John Snow - anaesthetist and epidemiologist, who demonstrated the link between cholera and infected water
• Samuel Leigh Sotheby, auctioneer
• H.F. Stephens - light railway pioneer
• Robert Story, poet originally from Northumberland
• Fred Sullivan, Thomas Sullivan and Mary Clementina Sullivan - the brother, father and mother of Arthur Sullivan, composer of Gilbert and Sullivan fame. It was originally planned that Arthur would also be buried there until Queen Victoria insisted on his interment in St Paul's Cathedral.

T

• Richard Tauber - operatic tenor
• William Terriss - actor
• Ernest Thesiger - character actor in such films as The Old Dark House and Bride of Frankenstein
• Frederic Thesiger, 1st Baron Chelmsford - jurist and statesman
• Frederic Augustus Thesiger, 2nd Baron Chelmsford - Commander-in-Chief in the Zulu War
• Brandon Thomas - author of Charley's Aunt

V

• Charles Blacker Vignoles - railway engineer, and inventor of the Vignoles rail

W

• Colonel Richard Wadeson - VC recipient
• Edward Wadsworth - artist
• Thomas Attwood Walmisley - composer and organist.
• Sir Robert Warburton - Anglo-Indian soldier and administrator
• Flight Sub Lieutenant Reginald Alexander John Warneford - VC recipient
• Sir Philip Watts - British naval architect, designer of the Elswick cruiser and the HMS Dreadnought.
• Sir Andrew Scott Waugh - British army officer and surveyor, who named the highest mountain in the world after Sir George Everest
• Benjamin Nottingham Webster - actor, theatre manager and playwright.
• Sir Thomas Spencer Wells - surgeon to Queen Victoria, medical professor and president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England
• Private Francis Wheatley - VC recipient
• Sir William Fenwick Williams - general, pasha and governor
• John Wisden - cricketer and founder of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
• Bennet Woodcroft - textile manufacturer, industrial archaeologist, pioneer of marine propulsion, prime mover in patent reform and the first clerk to the commissioners of patents
• Thomas Wright - antiquarian and writer

X-Y-Z

Johannes Zukertort - chess master

References and Sources

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brompton_cemetery
• http://www.brompton-cemetery.org/
• London Cemeteries: An Illustrated Guide and Gazetteer Hugh Miller & Brian Parsons.