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Showing posts from January, 2020

Sandwell Collection: Wood Green and Uplands Cemeteries added to the database

We are very excited to add two more cemeteries to our Sandwell Collection from the West Midlands Wednesbury Museum and Art Gallery (Image by Brianboru100 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25968898)  In 2015, we launched our   Sandwell Collection , representing cemeteries in the Black Country. The collection initially consisted of t hree of the West Midland's largest cemeteries: Heath Lane Cemetery,  West Bromwich , B71 3HR (records from 1858) Oldbury Cemetery,  Smethwick , B66 1QT (records from 1858) Tipton  Cemetery, Alexandra Road, Tipton , DY4 7NP (records from 1873: some records were lost during the war. If your relations were buried between April 18th 1899 and July 18th 1908 or August 24th 1911 and August 20th 1915 there is an index record that they were buried in Tipton Cemetery but it is not possible to establish their address, date of death, age or the grave where they were actually buried, or with whom they were buried) . 

Agecroft Cemetery, Salford

This week, I focus on one of the cemeteries featured in our  new collection from the historic industrial city of Salford (now in Greater Manchester) Above: The Victorian mortuary chapel clocktower at Agecroft Cemetery Agecroft Cemetery and Crematorium is situated in the Pendlebury area of Salford. Opened in 1903 in response to overcrowding at nearby Weaste Cemetery, Agecroft covers 45 acres. The cemetery originally had three chapels, Church of England, Roman Catholic, and nonconformist. The Catholic chapel was pulled down, and in 1957, the former nonconformist chapel building was converted  into a crematorium . On the left is a photograph of the disused Victorian mortuary chapel clocktower. This has been listed by the Victorian Society. I will be exploring Salford in the Second World War in detail next week. However, visitors to Agecroft should look out for the stone memorial to the seven-man crew of Lancaster bomber PB304. The aeroplane crashed in Regatta Street, Agecro

Salford in World War Two

Continuing our series of blogs on Salford City Council's burial and cremation records on the Deceased Online database, I discover some of those killed in the Manchester area by air raids during the Second World War. Tree growing among the headstones in Agecroft Cemetery, Salford Like many parts of the UK, the north-west of England was hit hard by air raids during the Second World War. One of the worst attacks was in the Manchester Blitz of Christmas 1940 . Another heavy attack took place over Christmas 1944 . During the war overall, 1,428 civilians from the Greater Manchester District were killed in the raids. It's estimated that 215 people were killed and 910 injured in  Salford   during the Luftwaffe raids of 22nd and 23rd of December . More than 8,000 homes damaged or destroyed. On the 28th December 1940, the Manchester Evening New s reported on the mass civic funeral of the victims at the Southern Cemetery in Chorlton-cum-Hardy . The services were conducted by the B