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Showing posts from December, 2019

Salford City Council Collection

Deceased Online this week launches a new collection from the historic industrial city of Salford  Agecroft Cemetery, Salford Salford is renowned as one of the world's first industrial cities. Its proud industrial history includes pioneering social support for workers, including the introduction of the world's first free public library. As a settlement, Salford dates back to the Neolithic Age, and Ordsall Hall , a haunted Tudor house is evidence of its existence as a village on the River Irwell. By the 18th century, Salford had a small population. However, this was soon to change with the Industrial Revolution. By 1801, the area was home to  29,495 individuals, many of whom worked in the expanding cotton and silk factories or on the docks of the Manchester Ship Canal . A hundred years later in 1901, thanks to the local textile industry, this had grown to  296,210.  Sadly the early 20th century saw a decline in Salford's industry as a result of overseas competition.

Dickens, Cemeteries, and Christmas

This Christmastide, we explore the connections between the author of A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, and the cemetery records in the Deceased Online database For many, Charles Dickens (1812-1870) is indelibly associated with Christmas. Besides the iconic   A Christmas Carol (published in 1843) , he also wrote the semi-autobiographical short story ‘A Christmas Tree’ (1850). Dickens loved the meaning and ritual of Christmas festivities. In later life, he enjoyed parties, and even in his poverty-stricken younger days, he always participated in the season. The ghosts in A Christmas Carol are believed to have been inspired by the stories told around the fire in his childhood Christmases that first inspired Dickens’ imagination to ‘hanker’ after the supernatural. Although Dickens is buried in the Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey , the burial records of many of his family and friends are found in the Deceased Online database .   In our  Highgate Cemetery  Collection from

Cedar of Lebanon at Highgate Cemetery

Sad loss of well-loved and historic tree Sadly, Highgate Cemetery has reported the loss of, "its great old Cedar of Lebanon " The beloved tree predates the cemetery, having been planted more than 50 years before the  London Cemetery Company began its  layout began in 1836.   It is not known exactly how old the Cedar was, but it was believed to be at least 250 years   Highgate Cemetery’s layout on seventeen acres of the former Ashurst Estate by Highgate Village,  which was itself taken down to allow for the building of  St Michael's Church, Highgate  in 1830.  The areas lie on a steep hillside, facing the centre of London, and winding down Swain’s Lane past Waterlow Park towards Hampstead Heath, Dartmouth Park and Kentish Town. Garden designer,  David Ramsey , created exotic, formal planting.  Stephen Geary , the architect, and surveyor,  James Bunstone Bunning  designed the stunning monuments and chapels of what soon became London’s most fashionable cemetery.