IN THE BEGINNING - Victorian Bradford and the cemetery

“The country which destroys its past deserves to have no future” Winston Churchill

“To walk firmly into the future you need to know about the past”

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the industrial revolution was well under way. The agrarian and cottage industry economy was changing to the steam driven mills and mass production of the factories. The emerging industrial centres were greedy for labour and in the rural areas country folk, often desperate for work, made a bee-line for the developing cities. Some, such as Robert Milligan, migrated to Bradford from Dumfries as a lad and found fame and fortune, becoming Bradford’s first Mayor in 1847, but for many it was a hard and short life!

This migration to the towns created enormous problems of housing and sanitation. Health and safety was not considered of major importance and life in the factories was exhausting and often dangerous. Epidemics such as Cholera and Scarlet Fever spread rapidly giving the average life span of 17 for the working classes and 34 for the 'gentry'.

Many did live to a great age but it was the appalling infant mortality rate that brought these averages down. Along with the high mortality rate Bradford wasn’t a ‘clean’ town by any stretch of the imagination. James Smith in his report for the Health of Towns Commission in 1844 concluded "of Bradford I am obliged to pronounce it the most filthy town I have visited". He described it as having "courts, yards and privies, open cesspits, pig styes and slaughterhouses and effluent laden watercourses".

If you had been born in Bradford up to the middle of the nineteenth century you would have been baptised, married and subsequently buried in the parish church,  St. Peter’s, now the cathedral. Those of the 'non-conformist' faiths had their own chapels and burial grounds within the town.

In 1801 Bradford was no more than a market town with a population around 13000, and the burial grounds within the limits of the town were able to dispose of the dead  adequately. By 1841 the population had grown to 103,000 and the disposal of the dead was becoming a major problem. In 1837 an observer noted that the churchyard was now 'decently full', but its use continued and they managed to pack another few thousand bodies into the grounds.

As the mortality rate increased things were coming to crisis point and the concept of cemeteries started to be looked at again. It is worth noting here the difference between a cemetery and a graveyard i.e a cemetery is a burial ground unattached to a church.

The Romans and Saxons had used this method centuries earlier and taken their dead out of the town precinct and buried them in a dedicated area. As Christianity spread the church steadily took on the role of burial and looked after 'God's little acre'.

Burial constituted a large part of Church income so they didn’t take too kindly to this cemetery concept. Finally Government legislation allowed private cemeteries to be established and so the creation began with what the Victorians called the 'Great gardens of sleep'.

"Shall Wakefield, Huddersfield and Halifax excel us? Our pride says nay!"

Plaintive cry from a Bradfordian in a Yorkshire Newspaper!

By 1850 Bradford was well overdue for it’s new commercial cemetery. Many had already been established around the country such as London’s Kensal Green and Norwood and the famous Highgate cemetery. A large quarry in Liverpool was landscaped and laid out in 1829. Sheffield people got theirs in the shape of the Central Cemetery in1836.

So, rather belatedly, a group of leading  business men decided it was time for Bradford to have its cemetery and build this necessary amenity. It shouldn’t be forgotten that this was also a business venture designed to make money. It would be several years later before the corporation would be allowed to use money from the rates to open municipal cemeteries. Scholemoor being the first in Bradford in 1860. The Bradford Cemetery Company was provisionally registered in 1849 and received its licence to operate in 1852, its 13 directors, included such luminaries as Sir Titus Salt and Robert Milligan, Bradford’s first Mayor. A share issue was floated and a suitable site then had to be found.

The criteria was that it was to be of the required acreage, on the outskirts of the town but still have reasonable access. Such a parcel of land became available at Undercliffe when the Hustler’s, a wealthy Quaker family, wanted to sell off their estate. Ironically it was described at the time by John Horsfall of the Bradford Observer 1850 as 'a site where the town is least likely to expand to'.

The auction was held at the Sun Inn at the bottom of Ivegate on the 16^th of July 1851 and two lots 13 & 14, consisting of 26 acres of farm land and buildings were purchased for £3400. The land was encompassed on the north side by the Otley 'turnpike' and on the south, Undercliffe Lane.

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