Interesting Burials in Newcastle

Date: 2004-08-27, Publication: The Journal

Tony Henderson talks to a man who has buried himself in his work for the last seven years.

Every day Newcastle becomes a hive of activity as thousands live, work, shop and socialise.

Buried beneath their feet are many thousands more who did exactly the same things in the city for century after century.

Retired chartered accountant Alan Morgan set out to investigate more than 30 burial places - churchyards, municipal cemeteries and private grounds - in Newcastle to find out just who is buried where.

As the city grew and development forged ahead, countless graves were lost. But enough remained to allow Alan to fill four years compiling an astonishing list of last resting places of household names who helped create the modern city, exotic visitors and downright eccentrics.

Buried in St John's cemetery in Elswick in 1876 was John Woodger, inventor of the kipper. He ran a pub in Newcastle, and discovered that after a wooden shed in which he stored salted herring caught fire, the fish tasted delicious.

He opened a curing yard in North Shields and shop in Northumberland Street in Newcastle.

Nearby are headstones of Chinese sailors who died after arriving on Tyneside to man warships built in Armstrong's Elswick shipyard. The same cemetery accommodates William Pape, who died in 1923. He ran a game and fishing tackle shop in Collingwood Street in Newcastle and in 1859 organised the world's first dog show, which barred women competitors and bitch exhibits.

In St Nicholas Cathedral church-yard is laid the chief of Newcastle's Press Gang, which forcibly recruited men for the Navy, and who was aptly named Captain Bover.

Alan has unearthed remarkable incidents such as the funeral in St John's Church, in what is now Grainger Street, of a 14-year-old boy called Thomas Matfield, or Matfin.

As the coffin was carried into church, pallbearers felt movement and found the boy stirring from a coma. Thomas went on to work as a keelman and was buried in All Saints churchyard after reaching age 77.

In Westgate Hill cemetery is the grave of Corsair, son of American Indians from Iowa who visited Newcastle in 1845 for, according to a contemporary account, "the purpose of exhibiting war dances and savage songs with which they celebrate their barbarian and bloody exploits."

And buried in St Andrew's church-yard is 28-year-old Algerian dancer Zaza Ben-I-Ford, who took part in the 1929 North East Coast Exhibition in Newcastle which featured an African-style mud hut village.

They all make appearances in Alan's new book Beyond the Grave, by Tyne Bridge Publishing at £7.99.

It follows the success of his book on Jesmond Old Cemetery, known as "Highgate of the North." Published four years ago, A Fine and Private Place sold out in 18 months and has been the subject of talks by Alan and a destination on the City Guides walking tours list ever since. It will be reprinted at the end of this month.

Alan, from High Heaton, and himself a city guide, became interested in burial grounds after developing a passion for local history. In his own words, he became "addicted" after completing his retirement project of tracing his family history back to 14th Century farming ancestors in Weardale.

"The success of the Jesmond cemetery book showed there is a tremendous interest in the subject," says Alan who has spent seven years in burial ground research. I must have covered every blade of grass in Newcastle's cemeteries and some-times I talk like a funeral director. But I don't think people think of me as morbid. They want to know who is buried where and what they did."

In the end, so as to speak, Alan had twice as much material as the new book could take. In places like Ballast Hills cemetery in Ford Street in the Ouseburn area, the social history value of the work emerges. Now an open space with gravestones laid flat to form footpaths, it was the biggest non-conformist burial ground in Britain outside London.

The stones give an insight into life in 18th and 19th century Newcastle.

"A lot of trades are mentioned and many of them are trades which have been forgotten," says Alan.

Although thousands of people lie in forgotten unmarked graves under Newcastle, today's trend for cremation means individuals vanish even more quickly. Newcastle's West Road crematorium and cemetery opened in 1934. Then the cremation rate was 1pc. Now it is 71pc.

"Less and less people are being buried and in future a lot of people won't have a last resting place known to the public," says Alan.

How we buried the news

One of the strangest burials was not of a body but a piece of machinery.

During the Second World War when fear of a German invasion was at its height, management at The Journal and Evening Chronicle arranged to bury a vital part of the printing press - if the worst happened - under a table tombstone in nearby St John's Churchyard.

A trial run was carried out at night with a tomb which was chosen at random.

When the site was visited the following day it was discovered that the tombstone was that of Thomas Slack, who 180 years earlier had founded the Newcastle Chronicle.

Who's Who of burial plots in Newcastle

St John's cemetery, Elswick. Opened in 1857. Almost 105,000 burials.

They include:

* Dr Charles John Gibb, the surgeon and GP who features in The Blaydon Races.

* Alphonse Constant Reyrolle, founder of Reyrolle in Hebburn which used to employ thousands and was known worldwide.

* The most spectacular tomb is that of William Mather, a builder and bricklayer who inherited nearly £300,000, making him a millionaire in today's terms.

* The 38 men and boys killed in the Montagu View Pit in Scotswood in 1925 when 3.5m gallons of water burst into the mine from old workings.

All Saints cemetery, Jesmond Road. Opened in 1857. Nearly 90,000 burials. Contains bodies of executed criminals who were transferred when Carliol Square jail was demolished in 1924.

* Samuel Smith, the founder of Rington's Tea.

* Alexander Gardner, captain of Newcastle United during the club's pre-First World War heyday when he made 268 appearances, scoring 20 goals.

* Antonio Marcantonio, founder of Mark Toney ice cream.

St Andrew's Church, Newgate Street.

* Fourteen alleged witches and one wizard executed in 1650 after Newcastle employed a witchfinder on the basis of 20 shillings for each conviction.

* William Newton, architect of the Assembly Rooms.

St Andrew's cemetery, Jesmond. Opened in 1858. More than 43,000 burials.

* Eileen Maud Blair, wife of novelist George Orwell.

* Artist Ralph Hedley.

* Shipbuilder Sir George Burton Hunter.

Westgate Hill General cemetery. Opened 1829.

* Robert Hood Haggie, who founded the rope works.

* James Crozier, an eccentric pharmacist who slept on the floor of his Clayton Street shop, lived on rice and tea and wore a white cotton suit night and day.

Burial grounds

People have been propping up Newcastle for more than a thousand years. Archaeologists unearthed hundreds of Anglo-Saxon burials in the area of the Roman fort around the Castle Keep and railway arches.

A dig took place in 1996 on the site of the former Newcastle Infirmary in advance of the building - ironically - of the Centre for Life. It produced 210 complete and 400 partial skeletons. Evidence suggested surgeons at the infirmary had used bodies for dissection. The remains were reburied at Lemington cemetery.

Epidemics took many of the city's residents. In 1579 the Black Death accounted for 2,000 folk - about a fifth of Newcastle's population. In 1589 it claimed 1,827. In 1636, 5,037 died over seven months and 924 in 1675. Cholera killed 306 in 1831-32, 412 in 1848-49 and 1,533 in 1853.