HIGHGATE CEMETERY

HIGHGATE CEMETERY

Highgate Cemetery is best known as the last resting place of Karl Marx; and his grave is certainly imposing. But there's much, much, more to see. There are approximately 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves across the West and East Cemeteries. It's a cemetery when there's no church, otherwise a graveyard.

I've divided the graves into categories which will be familiar to Trivial Pursuit enthusiasts.

History

Elizabeth Jackson (1801-1839)

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

The resplendent Karl Marx grave was funded by the Marx Memorial Fund, set up by the Communist Party in 1955. His original headstone (right) can still be seen nearby.

The political philosophies of Karl Marx were certainly significant and generally speaking admirable. But in practice they don’t appear to work too well in communities larger than around 200 people. So fine for a kibbutz or extended Asian family, otherwise …. discuss.

It’s not that democracy works that well. Maybe we’ll have to wait for the robots to take over before there’s anything better.

Marx had a lot to say, here’s a few quotes:

"Democracy is the road to socialism."

"History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce."

"Social progress can be measured by the social position of the female class."

(see also The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital)

Alexander Litvinenko (1962-2006)

Sir Albert Barratt (1860-1941)

1950s 2023

.... the wrapping might be less offensive, but the taste is the same. And you still end up with a black tongue.

Cundey family

The Cundey family have run Henry Poole & Co, bespoke Savile Row tailors, since 1876 when Henry Poole died and was succeeded by his cousin Samuel Cundey. The legacy has continued for five generations to the present-day owners Angus Cundey and son Simon. See Mayfair East.

Philip Gould, Baron Gould of Brookwood (1950-2011)

Philip Gould died of cancer. After being told he only had three months to live he made an inspiring and poignant eight-minute video: When I Die: Lessons from the Death Zone. It can be seen on YouTube and includes footage of Philip at the site of his final resting place in Highgate Cemetery.

Labour peer and strategist, Gould was one of the architects of New Labour, playing a crucial role in helping Tony Blair to three election victories.
"He was my guide and mentor, a wise head, a brilliant mind." Tony Blair

Bruce Reynolds (1931-2013)

Mary Nichols (1851-1909)

The grave of Mary Nichols is a thing of beauty, topped with a white marble angel sleeping on a bed of clouds. Mary died from diabetes and heart failure. Her husband Arthur was an Australian-born bank manager. But he is not buried with Mary, having remarried a year after her death. The only other family member in the tomb is her infant grandson Dennis who died in 1916.

Thomas Druce (c.1793-1864)

John Atcheler (1792–1867)

John Atcheler was a 'knacker' who became rich and famous as ‘Horse Slaughter to Queen Victoria’.
A dead horse was valuable. On his death, Atcheler was worth £35,000, equivalent to around £3.5 million today. Horse meat became dog and cat food, the hide became leather, the tail and mane hair provided padding for furniture and mattresses, the oil from the bones was used on harnesses and for soap and glue manufacture then ground up with the hooves for fertiliser. Farriers recycled the horseshoes. So, flogging a dead horse was maybe not so futile.
In a separate plot (right) at Highgate, a far-from-knackered Suffolk Punch horse marks the graves of the second of Atcheler’s three wives, his son and stepson.

All this gives me the opportunity to repeat the true Lester Piggott story told to me by Julian Wilson:

England footballer Alan Ball bought a racehorse and was thrilled to have Lester on board for its maiden race. In the paddock afterwards Balley, in his high-pitched voice, shouted – “What do you think of him Lester?”
“Glue” was the response in Lester's unmistakable nasal tone.
You have to imagine former public schoolboy Julian imitating the voices (rather well) as he told this.
Sadly, Julian is also no longer with us. Despite him once explaining to some jockeys - “Mick isn’t a racing chappie” – we got on very well. On one trip to Longchamps as Julian’s producer I asked him what he wanted me to do. “Just buy the Pimm’s for the film crew, I’ll handle the rest”, said Julian.

Julius Beer (1836-80)

Julius Beer was a German-born financier who had this large mausoleum built after the death of his eight-year-old daughter Ada. A sculpture inside the vault by Henry Hugh Armstead depicts Ada in the arms of an angel.
Beer’s wifeThyrza and brother Arnold are also interred here, both having died within a year of Julius’s passing; all three were only in their 40s.The only other occupant of the crypt is Frederick Beer, the only child of Julius and Thyrza.
Julius Beer made his fortune in the London Stock Exchange. In 1870, he bought The Observer newspaper, which he owned until his death in 1880. Frederick’s Indian-born wife Rachel was a member of the wealthy Baghdadi Jewish Sassoon family. She became the first women to become the editor-in-chief of a national newspaper - at The Observer. She later took on the same role at The Sunday Times, having bought the paper. Her nephew was Siegfried Sassoon, the celebrated WWI poet.
Despite having converted to Christianity, Rachel's Jewish family blocked her burial in an Anglican cemetery.
Goldhammer Sepulchre

Robert Goldhammer is also honoured with a memorial door in Mayfair’s Grosvenor Chapel.

Arts and Literature

Anthony Shaffer (1926-2001)

Anna Mahler (1904-88)

When Anna met Groucho YouTube

Matthew Cotes Wyatt (1777-1862)

This is the family vault of Matthew Cotes Wyatt, the sculptor of the infamous statue of the Duke of Wellington now located at Aldershot. Wellington himself sat for Wyatt but his favourite horse Copenhagen had died, and Wyatt received criticism for using a substitute which looked nothing like the famous steed.

Punch Magazine, 1846

Wellington Arch, at Hyde Park corner, commemorates the Duke’s victory over Napoleon. It was originally topped with Wyatt’s statue which was ridiculed as its massive size dwarfed the arch. Foreign intellectuals who visited London derided the 30-foot-high structure as "spectacular confirmation of the artistic ignorance of the English". Thirty-three years after Wellington died the statue was tactfully moved to its current location at Aldershot.

Wyatt also sculpted the statue of George III which stands near New Zealand house (see Pall Mall).

Joseph Edwards (1814-1882) and Eliza Vaughan (1809-58)

Joseph Edwards was a renowned and prolific Welsh sculptor whose work appears in many churches and cemeteries. From 1838 to 1878 seventy of his creations were exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts.
Daughter of Grace — Religion by Edwards stands above the Highgate grave of Eliza Vaughan, the wife of the Reverend R C Vaughan, curate of All Saint’s, Poplar. The seven-foot-high marble statue atop a five-foot pedestal depicts a figure with one hand on a large bible and the other holding a small bunch of flowers to her breast.

Patrick Caufield (1936-2005)

Patrick Caufield was an English pop artist and printmaker known for his bold canvases, which often incorporated elements of photorealism within a pared-down scene. Examples of his work are After Lunch and Pottery. He designed his own headstone. When asked what his epitaph would be, Caulfield said - "Dead, of course". Everyone thought he was joking.

Rossetti plot

Douglas Adams (1952-2001)

Fans leave pens by his gravestone - nice touch.
Douglas Adams came up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
1. Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that is invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

George Eliot (1819-80)

Beryl Bainbridge (1932-2010)

Before taking up writing, Beryl Bainbridge was an actress. In 1961 she appeared in Coronation Street as either an anti-nuclear protestor or barmaid (depending on which obit you read). So, she had something in common with Cliff Richard, Charles III, Spice Girl Mel B and Joan Collins who have all made cameo appearances in the long-running soap - as have Ben Kingsley, Joanna Lumley, Peter Schmeichel, Peter Kay, Vic Reeves and Francis Rossi & Rick Parfitt of Status Quo. As a child actor, Davy Jones of the Monkees played Ena Sharples' grandson. I'll stop now.

Circle of Lebanon Catacombs

Marguerite Radclyffe Hall (1880-1943)

Marguerite Radclyffe Hall was a lesbian novelist and poet whose book The Well of Loneliness about same-sex relationships was banned in 1926. The book is not sexually explicit but was still the subject of an obscenity trial in the UK which resulted in all copies being destroyed.

Radclyffe Hall is buried at the entrance of the Batten family vault in the Circle of Lebanon. Hall and Mabel Batten were lovers and lived together after Mabel’s husband died. Following Mabel’s death in 1916, Hall had a relationship for the rest of her life with sculptor Una Troubridge, Mabel’s cousin.

Troubridge died in Rome in 1963 and is buried there. Instructions for her to be buried in the Batten vault were discovered too late.

Jim Stanford Horn (1976-2010)

Lucian Freud (1922-2011)

Suzy Boyt (1935-2016)

Woman Smiling is an unusually cheerful portrait for Freud of Suzy Boyt, an artist herself. She was a pupil of Freud's at the Slade art school before becoming his lover for a decade, and a friend for much longer.

Entertainment

George Michael (1963-2016)

Having said "you can't miss Lucian Freud's grave as it is next to George Michael" I should have pointed out you can miss George Michael's grave if you don't know what his real name was.

George's sister Melanie died exactly three years after her brother, also on Christmas Day.
Their mother, Lesley Angold (nee Harrison, died 1997), was an English dancer. She

is also interred on the family plot.

Harry Thornton (1883-1918)

Jeremy Beadle (1948-2008)

Philip Harben (1906-1970)

According to Guinness World Records the first cooking show on television was the BBC’s Cookery which ran from 1946-1951. The show was hosted by Philip Harben, the first celebrity TV chef. On the first programme Harben demonstrated the preparation of lobster vol-au-vents – somewhat exotic considering food was still rationed after the war.
In 1958, he helped found the Harbenware kitchen utensils company which is still operating under the same name.

Jean Simmons (1929-2010)

Jean Simmons OBE was a British-American actress whose movie and TV career spanned 50 years. Her career briefly stalled in the early 1950s when she rejected the advances of Howard Hughes, her boss at RKO, and he made life difficult for her. But, having gone over to 20th Century Fox, Simmons landed the female lead in The Robe (1953), the first movie in CinemaScope. It was a huge success.
Jean Simmons was married and divorced twice. Her first husband was actor Stewart Granger (born James Stewart).
Her father, Charles Simmons, won a bronze medal for gymnastics in the 1912 Olympics.

Corin Redgrave (1939-2010)

THE REDGRAVE ACTING DYNASTY

NB Corin's second wife Kika Markham was also an actress. Jemma Redgrave was the daughter of Corin's first wife Deirdre Hamilton-Hill. Liam Neeson is the widower of Natasha Richardson who tragically died in a skiing accident in 2009. Lynn Redgrave died within a month of her brother.

With his elder sister Vanessa, Corin Redgrave was a prominent member of the Trotskyist Worker's Revolutionary Party. After the WRP's collapse, they were both founder members of the Marxist Party. When I worked for the BBC I remember Vanessa regularly handing out copies of The Socialist Worker at the gates of Television Centre.

Malcolm McLaren (1946-2010)

His body was buried to the accompaniment of the Sid Vicious version of "My Way".

The grave has been subject to vandalism, once being sprayed in green paint with the altogether appropriate punk words No Future. Malcolm would surely have approved. The death mask was sculpted by Nick Reynolds who was also responsible for the rather less sympathetic likeness of his father, great train robber Bruce Reynolds.

George Wombwell (1777-1850)

George Wombwell was buried in a coffin made from wood from a shipwreck. The coffin had been gifted to him by Prince Albert after Wombwell had cured his dog. Up until his death the showman put the coffin on display and charged a fee.

Charles Cruft (1852-1938)

Sport and Leisure

Thomas Sayers (1826-65)

Ugo Ehiogu (1972-2017)

Frederick Lillywhite (1772-1854)

Science and Nature

Michael Faraday (1791-1867)

Dr Tom Magerison (1923-2014)

Following WWII Tom Margerison was courted by both MI5 and the KGB but didn’t fancy becoming a spy.
He had an uncanny likeness to actor James Mason, something he would unashamedly use when making restaurant reservations.
Marjorie Wallace, Margerison’s long-time partner, founded the mental health charity SANE.

"He explained the world to us as no-one else had done before".

Professor Man Fong Mei (1946-2014)

Professor Man Fong Mei was a passionate integrator of medicine between East and West for over four decades. He invented the world’s first disposable traditional acupuncture needle at a time when the practice of acupuncture with reusable needles was controversial because of hepatitis B cross-infection and the risk of AIDS and HIV infections.

Professor Mei’s friends who were tidying his plot were impressed I’d heard of Qing Ming (Tomb Sweeping Day). In fact I’ve ‘been there, done it’ in the tropical heat and humidity of Malaysia. My Malaysian family's ancestors didn't believe in simple graves.

This is the final resting place in Ipoh of a great uncle and his two (coexisting) wives who were sisters ….

.... he was a mining tycoon. And nearby are the graves of my late wife Keng-Gah’s Grandfather Chang Kwong Tian and Grandmother Moey Choi Heng …..

Cousin Raymond Chang is on the left in both of these pictures, the second with Grandfather Chang.

We later discovered Professor Man Fong Mei was born in Taishan, Guangzhou where grandmother came from. They were likely related as Mei is Pinyin and Moey is the Cantonese transliteration. (Keng-Yee - thanks for all this).

Geography

Getting there .... Take the underground to Archway. Then catch a 143, 210 or 263 bus up Highgate Hill to Waterlow Park. Walk through the park to the cemetery entrance in Swain's Lane. Admission is £10. A guided tour is £15.
There is no cafe, just a coffee stall. So if you want to see everything it's worth packing sandwiches.
There have been concerns Highgate Cemetery might become a "Disneyland of Death". But it was pretty quiet and respectful on my weekday visit. Also, apart from a few disabled bays, there is no car park.
I walked 7.4 miles altogether in five hours, and it's not flat. This included some backtracking where I'd failed to spot things. I'm disappointed I failed to find the grave of Tom Smith, inventor of the Christmas cracker.

Good luck finding British watercolourist George Fripp!

Maps with more detail, which direct you to almost all the graves I've listed, are included in the ticket prices.

Other Lives .....

Frederick Warne (1825-1901) was (and still is) a publisher of children's book, notably those of Beatrix Potter and the Observer's Books, Frederick's son Norman, also buried at Highgate, was engaged to Potter. But he died of leukaemia before they could marry. Ewan McGregor played Norman in the 2006 film Miss Potter with Renée Zellweger in the title role.

William Richard Foyle (1912-1957) was the son of William Alfred Westropp Foyle (1885-1963) who with brother Gilbert founded the famous bookshop in 1903. I have to say there's some confusion here as I thought this was his father's grave. Apparently that is nearby and I somehow missed it. Foyles flagship store is still in Charing Cross Road and is owned by Waterstones; I quite like the café. I remember when I first lived in London, before Foyles was modernised, you had to queue three times to buy a book: to collect an invoice, pay the invoice, then collect your book.

Ellen Wood (1814-87) Best-selling author known as Mrs Henry Wood. Her monument is based on the ancient Roman tomb of Cornelius Scipio Barbatus which had recently been discovered.

Alan Sillitoe (1928-2010) Novelist and short story writer remembered for Saturday Night

and Sunday Morning and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner both of which were adapted as movies.

Michael Young (1915-2002) Famously drafted the Labour manifesto for their shock landslide election victory in 1945. Creator of the consumer magazine Which? and co-founder of the Open University.

Paul Foot (1937-2004) Investigative journalist, political campaigner and author. Nephew of former Labour Party leader Michael Foot.

Chris Harman (1942-2009) was a British journalist and political activist. He was an editor of International Socialism and Socialist Worker.

Simon Paul Wolff (1957-1995) was a toxicologist and campaigner who told MPs: "the switch to diesel which is now taking place may well be a large-scale experiment in lung cancer". He wasn't too popular with the oil companies who at the time were promoting diesel as a clean option.

Sir Ralph Richardson (1902-83) British actor. The inscription on his gravestone is barely visible.

Alan Howard (1937-2015), stage actor and Sally Beauman, writer (1944-2016).

Hercules Bellville (1939-2009) American film producer. Great name!

Bert Jansch (1943-2011) and his wife Loren. The Scottish folk guitarist and singer-songwriter's final public performances were in 2011 at Glastonbury and the Royal Festival Hall with the reformed Pentangle, the band he co-founded in 1968.

Nick Hirsch (1976-2012) Guitarist with three-piece North London blues band The Dirty Feel. The legend reads "This water source has been donated by Pipe Dream Studios". Nick ran Pipe Dreams with his twin brother.

Danny Wilder (1986-2013) Lead singer and guitarist of London rock and hip hop band Kings of the City.

Professor David Hughes (1831-1900) British-American engineer who invented a printing telegraph and an early type of microphone. His family crypt is in the Circle of Lebanon.

Peter Desbois (1950-2020) "The sound engineer with the Ferrari".

William Monk (1823-89) Organist and writer of hymns; composer of Abide With Me and All Things Bright and Beautiful.

Mears family (1860s) owned the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, the longest running company in Britain where the first Big Ben bell and the first Liberty Bell were cast. See Whitechapel Road.

Brodie McGhie Wilcox (1786-1862) businessman who, in 1822, founded P & O Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company shipping line. He was member of Parliament for Southampton from 1847 until his death.

John Maple (1815-1900) The Maple family vault features low relief carvings from the life of Christ. In 1841 John Maple established the very successful furniture business which occupied a large site on Tottenham Court Road until 1997.

Dr Frederick Akbar Mahomed (1849-84) Significant research on hypertension and preventative medicine before dying of typhoid fever at the age of thirty-five. After his wife Ellen died in 1876 he married her sister Ada in Switzerland. At the time it was illegal in Britain to wed your late wife's sister.

Charles Rowlatt (1933-2017) Medical researcher and toy designer.

Dr Nigel John Legg (1936-2017) Neurology consultant whose great passion was for vintage and classic cars. In the late sixties and seventies he owned a 1930’s Rolls Royce saloon, which he converted to become open topped, and in the nineties he designed and built an open topped Mark VI Bentley Special. He owned many other classic cars in between.

Edward Blore (1787-1879) Architect best known for his work on the Façade of Buckingham Palace and the restoration of Lambeth Palace.

Marco Goldschmied (1944-2022) British architect remembered as co-founder and managing director of the Richard Rogers Partnership who later became president of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Sir Henry Knight Storks (1811-74) Army reformer and MP. His large headstone displays his military honours and crossed sabres.

General Sir Loftus Otway (1775-1854) served with Wellington in the Peninsula War.

Thomas Lewis (1854-1910) was actually a patient in the field hospital at Rorke's Drift during the famous battle where 150 British and colonial soldiers held off 3000-4000 Zulu warriors. Lewis somehow managed to survive as the hospital was overrun. He wasn't so fortunate in 1910 when a negligent surgeon left a swab inside him, likely contributing to his death from a pulmonary embolism.

Elizabeth Tennyson (1781-1865) Mother of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, the Poet Laureate, and also his brother Frederick, his headstone behind the cross. Tennyson himself is buried in Poets' Corner Westminster Abbey.

Catherine Dickens (1815-1879) Charles Dickens is also buried in Poets' Corner. The grave of his long-suffering wife Catherine, who bore his 10 children, is here (centre). Her infant daughter Dora, who died in 1851 is buried with her.

Sir Rowland Hill memorial. The creator of the postage stamp is buried in Westminster Abbey. But he is also remembered here on the grave of his wife Caroline and their family.

(above) the final resting places of Tennyson, Dickens and Hill in Westminster Abbey.

Dr Manuchehr Sabetian (1928-2013) was an Iranian revolutionary who fought both the Shah and the Ayatollah. His family commissioned Nick Reynolds to make the "death mask" after seeing his work on the graves here of Malcolm McClaren and his father Bruce Reynolds.

Sir Fitzroy Kelly (1796-1880) Senior judge known as 'Apple Pip' Kelly after he, as a barrister, unsuccessfully defended a poisoner by claiming the victim had poisoned herself by eating too many apple pips.

George Hering (1805-79) Landscape painter, shown with an artist's palette and brushes.

Not famous, but fondly remembered .....