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Glasgow Necropolis
Glasgow Necropolis
	Monuments on the summit of the Glasgow Necropolis hill
Details
Established	1832; 192 years ago
Location	Glasgow
Country	Scotland
Coordinates	55°51′44″N 4°14′00″W / 55.86217°N 4.23340°W
Type	Public
Size	37 acres (15 ha)
No. of interments	50,000
Website	http://www.glasgownecropolis.org
Find a Grave	Glasgow Necropolis

The Glasgow Necropolis is a Victorian cemetery in Glasgow, Scotland. It is on a low but very prominent hill to the east of Glasgow Cathedral (St. Mungo's Cathedral). Fifty thousand individuals have been buried here.^[1] Typical for the period, only a small percentage are named on monuments and not every grave has a stone. Approximately 3,500 monuments exist here.

Background

Following the creation of Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris a wave of pressure began for cemeteries in Britain. This required a change in the law to allow burial for profit. Previously the parish church held responsibility for burying the dead but there was a growing need for an alternative. Glasgow was one of the first to join this campaign, having a growing population, with fewer and fewer attending church. Led by Lord Provost James Ewing of Strathleven, the planning of the cemetery was started by the Merchants' House of Glasgow in 1831, in anticipation of a change in the law. The Cemeteries Act was passed in 1832 and Glasgow Necropolis officially opened in April 1833.^[2] Just before this, in September 1832, a Jewish burial ground had been established in the north-west section of the land. This small area was declared "full" in 1851.

History

Pre-dating the cemetery, the statue of John Knox sitting on a column at the top of the hill, dates from 1825.

The first burials were in 1832 in the extreme north-east on the lowest ground and were exclusively for Jewish burials (see section below). Alexander Thomson designed a number of its tombs, and John Bryce and David Hamilton designed other architecture for the grounds.

The main entrance is approached by a bridge over what was then the Molendinar Burn. The bridge, which was designed by David Hamilton was completed in 1836. It became known as the "Bridge of Sighs" because it was part of the route of funeral processions (the name is an allusion to the Bridge of Sighs in Venice). The ornate gates (by both David and James Hamilton) were erected in 1838, restricting access onto the bridge.

Three modern memorials lie between the gates and the bridge: a memorial to still-born children; a memorial to the Korean War; and a memorial to Glaswegian recipients of the Victoria Cross.

Across the bridge the original scheme was to enter the area via a tunnel but this proved unviable. The ornate entrance of 1836 remains.

The cemetery, as most early Victorian cemeteries, is laid out as an informal park, lacking the formal grid layouts of later cemeteries. This layout is further enhanced by the complex topography. The cemetery's paths meander uphill towards the summit, where many of the larger monuments stand, clustered around the John Knox Monument.

The Glasgow Necropolis was described by James Stevens Curl as "literally a city of the dead". Glasgow native Billy Connolly has said: "Glasgow's a bit like Nashville, Tennessee: it doesn't care much for the living, but it really looks after the dead."^[3]

Notable statues and sculptures

Tomb/mausoleum	Statue/sculpture	Designer/artist	Year
Memorial column on summit of the hill	Monument to John Knox	Doric column by Thomas Hamilton and 12 ft (3.7 m) statue by William Warren (carved by Robert Forrest)	1825
Tomb of Mrs Lockhart	Sculpture	William Mossman	1842
Mausoleum of Major Archibald Douglas Monteath	Large tiered octagonal building of neo-Norman design	David Cousin	1842
Tomb of William Motherwell	Marble bust	James Fillans	1851
Tomb of actor-manager John Henry Alexander of the Theatre Royal	Scene representing stage and proscenium arch with flanking figures of "Tragedy" and "Comedy" (As of 2012, one figure is missing and the other is headless.)	James Hamilton, sculpted by Alexander Handyside Ritchie	1851
Houldsworth Mausoleum	Flanking angels and "Hope" and "Charity", with "Faith" visible inside the mausoleum	John Thomas	1854
Tomb of Charles Tennant	Seated marble figure of Charles Tennant of St Rollox	Patric Park	1838
Tomb of Walter Macfarlane, of the Saracen Foundry	Art-nouveau portrait panel	Bertram Mackennal of London	1896
Blackie publishing family tomb	Tomb slab	Talwin Morris (carved by J & G Mossman Ltd.)	1910
Monument to William McGavin	Statue by Robert Forrest	John Bryce	1834
Andrew McCall	Celtic cross to Andrew McCall	Charles Rennie Mackintosh	1888
Monument to Peter Lawrence	Statue of Life with a dashed torch	William Mossman	1840
Tomb to Mrs Margaret Montgomerie	Statues of "Hope" and "Resignation"	J G & W Mossman	1856

Lords Provosts in the Necropolis

Other burials of note

Alexander Allan, ship owner
William Burns, historian
Hector Clare Cameron
Peter Clouston
Charles Connell, shipbuilder
Very Rev James Craik, moderator for 1863/4
William Doleman, golfer
John Gibb Dunlop, engineer
Nathaniel Dunlop
John Elder, shipbuilder, and his philanthropist wife Isabella Elder
John Graham Gilbert, artist
John Honeyman, architect
John Inglis, shipbuilder
James Jeffray, anatomist
William Keddie, founder of the Scottish Sunday School system
William Logan, temperance campaigner
David MacBrayne
James McCall, veterinary surgeon
Rev James Duff MacCulloch
Sir James MacFarlane (1857–1944), of MacFarlane Lang Biscuits^[4]
John Macgregor, shipbuilder
David Prince Miller, magician and theatre owner
William Miller, poet
George Arthur Mitchell, mining engineer
William Rae, firefighter
Sir James Roberton
Alexander Stephen, shipbuilder
Peter Stewart, engineer – subject of a bronze sculpture by James Pittendrigh Macgillivray
John Strang, writer
John Templeton and James Stewart Templeton, each of James Templeton & Co carpet makers (the latter grave was originally coloured to look like a carpet)
Charles S. P. Tennent and his brother Hugh Tennent and son Hugh Tennent all of Wellpark Brewery (the graves face the brewery)
William Thomson, Lord Kelvin
Rev Ralph Wardlaw
James George Wilson

War graves

Glasgow Necropolis holds graves of 19 Commonwealth service personnel, 15 from World War I and 4 from World War II, that are registered and maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.^[5] The first, and highest ranking, of those buried here is Lieutenant-General Sir James Moncrieff Grierson, who died in August 1914 in France and whose body was repatriated. His grave is in section Primus 38.^[6]

Jewish section

As Jewish people were not allowed to be interred within Christian burial grounds, a small area outwith the boundary of the main cathedral graveyard was allocated to them. The ground contains 57 burials.^[7]

Jewish burials took place here from 1832 to 1855, after which they were in the Eastern Necropolis.^[8]

The cemetery is now part of the expanded Necropolis and due to its low location its significance is often unrecognised.

The Jewish cemetery was restored in 2015.^[9]