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Kensal Green Cemetery

Harrow Rd,
London,
W10 4RA
http://www.kensalgreencemetery.com/

Kensal Green Cemetery is owned and managed by the General Cemetery Company, which also runs the West London Crematorium. Located in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in West London, it is one of the most prestigious and historic cemeteries in the UK.

Opened in 1833, it was the first of 'The Magnificent Seven' London cemeteries. Its beautiful environment is a designated Conservation Area which includes not just many Grade I, II and II* listed buildings and mausoleums but also thousands of stunning memorials of many famous Victorians and Edwardians.

The records available comprise the following:

  • Digital scans of the original burial reference books from 1833 to 2010
  • Details indicating those buried in each grave
  • Digital scans of the original cremation registers up to 1993, and computerised records thereafter.


Local history group and charity, The Friends of Kensal Green, is dedicated to the preservation, conservation and restoration of the Cemetery for the public benefit. The Friends group not only campaigns to help conserve the many listed buildings and monuments but also provides tours, exhibitions and information about the Cemetery. For more information, see http://www.kensalgreen.co.uk/.

Many famous people are buried in the Cemetery or have passed through the Crematorium. The Friends state on their website:
"....Its notable personalities include some 650 members of the titled nobility and over 550 individuals noted in the Dictionary of National Biography. Kensal Green is the resting place of the engineers Sir Marc Isambard Brunel and Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the mathematician Charles Babbage, and the novelists Wilkie Collins, Anthony Trollope and William Makepeace Thackeray; Lord Byron's wife, Oscar Wilde's mother, Charles Dickens' in-laws and Winston Churchill's daughter; a cross-dressing Army doctor and the surgeon who attended Nelson at Trafalgar; the creator of Pears' Soap, and the original WH Smith; the funambulist Blondin and the Savoyard George Grossmith; the first man to cross Australia from south to north; and the last man to fight a duel in England....."

Kensal Green boasts 140 Grade I, II* and II buildings and memorials including the following:

  • The Anglican and Dissenters chapels
  • The main Entrance Gateway
  • Royal tombs of Princess Sophia and Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex - children of George III
  • Mausoleum of Duke of Cambridge
  • Charles Babbage 1791-1871, inventor of calculating machines, forerunners of computers
  • 'James' Barry, 1795-1865 first female 'cross dressing' doctor
  • Emile Blondin, 1824-97, tightrope walker, famously walked over the Niagara Falls
  • Isambard Kingdom Brunel, 1806-59, celebrated engineer
  • Sir Marc Brunel, 1769-1849
  • Anne, Lady Byron, 1792-1860, Lord Byron's wife for a year
  • Marigold Churchill, 1918-21, Churchill's infant daughter
  • Wilkie Collins, 1824-89, novelist, 'The Woman in White', 'The Moonstone' etc.
  • Gen Sir Collingwood Dickson, 1817-1904, won VC in the Crimea
  • Isabella Glyn 1823-89, Shakespearean actress, imprisoned for two years for declining to release divorce documents
  • George Grossmith 1847-1912, singer and co-author of 'Diary of a Nobody'
  • Mary Hogarth, 1819-1837, Dickens' sister-in-law
  • James Leigh Hunt, 1784-1859, journalist, author; friend of Keats, Byron & Shelley
  • Sarah Lane, 1822-99, successful actress/manager of the Britannia theatre pantomimes
  • John Liston, 1776-1864, highest paid comic of his era
  • Maj Gen Sir Owen Lloyd, 1854-1941, won VC in Burma
  • John St John Long, 1798-1834, quack doctor and pharmacist
  • Fergus O'Connor, 1794-1855, chartist leader
  • Sir Robert Owen, 1771-1858, philanthropist, pioneer socialist
  • Sir Terence Rattigan, 1911-77, playwright
  • Sir John Rennie, 1794-1874, architect of London Bridge and royal dockyards
  • Edward Seaton, 1815-80, Surgeon, founder of Epidemiological Society
  • William Makepeace Thackeray, 1811-63, novelist; Dickens attended his funeral
  • Anthony Trollope, 1815-82, novelist
  • Freddie Mercury and Ingrid Bergman passed through the crematorium.

Much more on the history, monuments and personalities associated with Kensal Green can be found on the Friends of Kensal Green's website, http://www.kensalgreen.co.uk/.

Note: to comply with UK data protection and GDPR, addresses of the deceased are masked in register scans for the last 15 years.

 
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