British Cemetery and Cremation Records from Deceased Online

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  ...

In last week's post, I looked at the early years of the cemetery after its opening in 1833. Below I explore the lives of some of the famous Victorians who were buried at Kensal Green between 1860 and 1900. The burial records for all have been digitized on the Deceased Online database . The area around the cemetery altered from the 1860s as Kensal New Town was developed. North Kensington quickly became home to large numbers of working-class people, with several households living in each of the newly built terraced properties. Slum-dwellers were buried not far from aristocrats and celebrities in Kensington's modern cemetery. A strong literary connection to Kensal Green developed in this period, with its grounds becoming the resting places of some the nineteenth century's most celebrated authors. William Makepeace Thackeray , Anthony Trollope and Wilkie Collins are three of the most significant British authors of the Victorian age. Each of them created complex c...