In a message dated 16/01/2004 10:28:06 GMT Standard Time, markandjanboyes@ntlworld.com writes: > Hi Geoff, > In your last message, you mentioned about the Cemeteries Act. > Could you tell me  a little bit about it please? > Thanks! > > Jan Boyes > Stockton-on-Tees, England. > Jan:        I'm no legal expert, but the Cemeteries Act - or what I think of as such - was passed during the early 1850s to enable local authorities to establish and operate Municipal Cemeteries within their towns.  Once it was passed, various Orders in Council were issued, forbidding, on health grounds, any further interments in the grossly overcrowded parish churchyards within those towns.  That which effectively closed the ancient churchyards of Newcastle, for instance, was issued in 1854, and cemeteries were set up on the then outskirts for each of the four "ancient parishes of the city.        Parish churchyards in towns and cities had become such a scandal well before then that those who could afford it subscribed to a number of private cemeteries, of which Newcastle had the very large one on Jesmond Road (Newcastle General Cemetery, where the wealthier citizens were mainly buried) and also another at the top of Westgate Hill, near the "Big Lamp" (Westgate Cemetery, not to be confused with St John's Cemetery on Westgate Road, one of those established as a result of the Act and of the closure of St John's churchyard).  Newcastle also had other private cemeteries, of longer-standing, such as that at the Ballast Hills, outside the boundaries of the town until the Byker district was added, which began at least 100 years before that, as an unofficial burying place for poor nonconformists, mainly Scottish Presbyterians.  There was also the Jewish cemetery behind Westgate Road, though I'm not sure without looking it up when that began, and various Quaker ones.                           Best wishes,                                     Geoff Nicholson 57 Manor Park, Concord, WASHINGTON, Tyne & Wear NE37 2BU (0191 417 9546) Professional Genealogist - Northumberland and Co Durham.