VOICES FROM THE VAULTS: INSIDE THE CATACOMBS OF KENSAL GREEN CEMETERY

Step inside the catacombs of Kensal Green and uncover the stories of notable Londoners buried in this historic Victorian cemetery…

During my guided tours, I’m often asked about the most interesting people resting in Kensal Green’s shadowy vaults. Well, here’s the answer you’ve all been waiting for!

The cemetery has three catacombs built for the deposit of lead-sealed, triple-shelled coffins. Down there, the air is perfectly still, and the light eerily dim. The great, the bad, and the eccentric rest side by side, with their fortunes long faded and their stories forgotten, though many of them once shook London.

Here are some of my favourites: the most fascinating characters from the underworld of Kensal Green Cemetery.

CATACOMB A

(beneath the North Terrace Colonnade, the oldest one, now sealed and inaccessible)

MARGARET GREGORY (1833)

– the first person interred at Kensal Green Cemetery, only a week after its opening, later moved to a mausoleum here. She was married to BARNARD GREGORY (d. 1852), publisher of The Satirist (1831–1849), notorious for spreading scandalous rumours about high-profile Londoners and blackmailing his targets – earning himself multiple lawsuits and spells in prison.

FRANCIS GOODWIN (1835)

– an architect, most famous for proposing a huge pyramid (taller than St Paul’s Cathedral and with a base the size of Russell Square) to be built on Primrose Hill as a Grand National Cemetery in 1830.

JOSEPH SABINE (1837)

– a horticulturalist, vice-chairman of the Zoological Society of London, and recognised authority on British birds. His younger brother, Edward, took part in John Ross’s Arctic voyage of 1818 and sent Joseph a specimen of a small gull discovered on the expedition – later named Sabine’s gull (Xema sabini).

JOSEPH THEAKSTON (1842)

– a sculptor regarded as the finest drapery and ornamental carver of his time. He created a chimneypiece and marble clock frame for Buckingham Palace (1829), featuring two winged female figures and a bust of King George IV.

JOHN BIAGIO REBECCA (1847)

– an architect, author of the now Grade I listed Castle Goring, built for Sir Bysshe Shelley. It was the first house ever constructed with dual façades: Greco-Roman on the south side and Castellated Gothic on the north. The property was commissioned for his grandson, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, but was sold after his tragic death by Mary Shelley, the widow.

JOHN THEOBALD (1849)

– a racehorse owner with some of the best bloodstock in Europe. One of his horses, Stockwell, was known as “the emperor of stallions” and his skeleton is now in the Natural History Museum.

GEORGIANA HENDERSON (KEATE) (1850)

– a painter and illustrator, daughter of landscape artist George Keate. She married fellow artist John Henderson, and they had five children, two of whom became noted artists and art collectors.

ADMIRAL GEORGE COCKBURN (1853)

– Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy who, during the War with America, set several towns ablaze and famously burned the White House (1814).

EDWARD MALTBY, BISHOP OF DURHAM (1859)

– presented the Sovereign’s Orb at the wrong moment during Queen Victoria’s coronation; she later described him as “remarkably maladroit” (awkward, clumsy).

ALEXANDER JAMES EDMUND COCKBURN (1880)

– Lord Chief Justice of England for 21 years, presiding over some of the 19th century’s most famous cases, including the Tichborne Claimant trial (1873). In 1843, he established the customary test of insanity still used in Anglo-American criminal law.

CATACOMB B

(beneath the Anglican Chapel, the largest still operating catacomb in the UK)

THOMAS BERNARD (1818)

– a philanthropist devoted to improving the lives of workhouse inmates; founder of the Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor. An active member of the Foundling Hospital committee, he was reinterred here in 1927 when its chapel was demolished.

MAJOR GEN. JOSEPH O’HALLORAN (1843)

– an army officer who served in the Bengal Army for an unbroken and unprecedented period of 53 years, without ever taking any furlough or leave.

CLARA WEBSTER (1844)

– a ballet dancer whose costume caught fire from stage lighting during a performance at Drury Lane Theatre. She suffered severe burns and died a few days later.

WILLIAM CROCKFORD (1844)

– a fishmonger who won a large sum of money and founded a luxurious, members-only gambling hall on London’s most fashionable street. Crockford’s Club quickly became the rage, bankrupting the British aristocracy while making its owner one of the richest men in England.

ADMIRAL NESBIT “THE IMMORTAL” WILLOUGHBY (1849)

– his obituary noted he had been “eleven times wounded with balls, three times with splinters, and cut in every part of his body with sabres and tomahawks: his face was disfigured by explosions of gunpowder, and he lost an eye and had part of his jaw shot away… and at Leipzig had his right arm shattered by cannon shot”.

AUGUSTA MARY LEIGH (1851)

– the woman of the bedchamber to Queen Charlotte and half-sister to Lord Byron (they shared the same father, John “Mad Jack” Byron), known for her close and scandalous relationship with him. She was the only woman Byron truly loved; his last letter was to her, and he left her his property. She married Colonel George Leigh and had seven children, including Medora (1849) – allegedly Byron’s own daughter.

SIR JOHN DEAN PAUL (1852)

– a banker, artist (with 20 landscapes exhibited at the Royal Academy) and financial backer of the General Cemetery Company, responsible for the Classical style of Kensal Green’s chapels by John Griffith, who also designed his family mausoleum.

4th EARL OF MORNINGTON (1857)

– a notorious womaniser who squandered his fortune on gambling, including Britain’s largest Palladian mansion, demolished to pay his debts. His obituary in the Morning Chronicle called him “a spendthrift, a profligate (…) redeemed by no single virtue, adorned by no single grace”.

GEORGE AUGUSTUS POLGREEN BRIDGETOWER (1860)

– one of the greatest musicians of his era, a violinist of mixed Polish and mysterious African/Indian descent (his father was most likely a former West Indian slave from Barbados, though claimed to be an African prince), born in Biała Podlaska. A child prodigy, he performed across Europe by the age of 10. Ludwig van Beethoven was so impressed with his talent, he dedicated Violin Sonata No. 9 to Bridgetower – only to withdraw the dedication a few hours later and rename it the Kreutzer Sonata. George died alone at 82, sick and forgotten in squalid lodgings in Peckham, leaving behind several now-lost compositions.

WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY (1873)

– the greatest British actor of his generation, famed for his Shakespearean performances. His bitter rivalry with American theatrical star Edwin Forrest over who was the superior Macbeth sparked the famous great riot at Astor Opera House in Manhattan in 1849, leaving 30 dead and hundreds injured.

JANE FRANKLIN (1875)

– an independent, adventurous woman, and one of the greatest globetrotters of her century. When her husband Sir John Franklin disappeared in 1845 searching for the Northwest Passage, she organised six expeditions to find him. She travelled widely until the age of 80, visiting every continent except Antarctica. Her coffin was carried by six naval officers, veterans of the search for the Northwest Passage.

JOHN GRAHAM LOUGH (1876)

– a talented sculptor known for his memorials and funerary monuments (for example to his daughter, GEORGINA CLEMENTSON, located in the colonnade of Anglican Chapel).

KITTY STEPHENS / THE COUNTESS OF ESSEX (1882)

– a celebrated Victorian opera and concert singer, one of the finest sopranos of her times; after retiring, she married the 5th Earl of Essex.

JEANETTE CAROLINE PICKERSGILL (1885)

– a poet (‘Tales of the Harem’ published in 1827), painter (exhibited at the Royal Academy) and the first person to be legally cremated in England, at Woking on 26 March 1885. widow of artist Henry Hall Pickersgill.

DUDLEY MARJORIBANKS, 1st BARON TWEEDMOUTH (1894)

– a businessman and dog breeder who developed the beloved GOLDEN RETRIEVER.

GEORGE ANTHONY LINDSAY WILSON (1905)

– a mysterious and wealthy recluse who lived in Folkestone (Kent) for nearly thirty years, seen only at night. Some claimed he was the Tichborne claimant, others believed he was a noble refugee or even a murderer. After his death, he was revealed to be the son of General John Wilson, Governor of Ceylon, who is also buried here.

ROWENA FARRE / LOIS DAPHNE MACREADY (1979)

– an enigmatic author whose debut novel Seal Morning became a national bestseller and later a television series. Uncomfortable with the attention she disappeared for three years, prompting her publisher to post appeals in The Times in an attempt to contact her. A restless, nomadic soul, she was laid to rest beside her great-grandfather, the actor William Charles Macready.

CATACOMB Z

(beneath the Dissenters’ Chapel, closed to new interments but open to visitors during Sunday guided tours and special events)

JAMES HARMER (1853)

– an attorney and reformer of criminal law, founder of the Royal Free Hospital (1828); he built Ingress Abbey, a mansion in Kent, constructed largely from stones salvaged from the old London Bridge.

CHARLES ANDREA NOSOTTI (1853)

– an Italian carver, gilder and furniture maker whose firm decorated the chapels of the London Oratory, Norfolk House, and Arundel Castle. His Oxford Street showroom was famed for its lavishly decorated window displays and an immense Hall of Mirrors. Although he requested in his will wished to be buried in the Basilica of St George at Cuggiono near Milan, his remains ended up in the Kensal Green’s catacomb…

CHIKKA VIRARAJENDRA, RAJAH OF COORG (1859)

– the last ruler of the Kodagu (Coorg) kingdom in South India, who came to England in 1852 to seek restitution from the East India Company. His daughter, Princess Gouramma, was adopted and baptised by Queen Victoria. His remains rested here between September 1859 and September 1860.

RANI JINDAN, MAHARANI JIND KAUR (1863)

– the last queen of the Sikh Empire, renowned for her beauty and fight against the British colonialists, who actually regarded her as a serious threat and did their best to erase her from history. Trying to break her, they exiled her son to England and raised as gentleman, away from his culture and faith. Reunited with him 13 years later, she spent her final days in London. When she died, cremation was illegal in Britain, so her son had to wait a few months for a permission to take the body to Bombay – she spent that time here. The event was completely forgotten until a marble headstone was found during restoration in 1997.

ABRAHAM “JACK” LINCOLN II (1890)

– the only grandson of President Abraham Lincoln. While living in London with his diplomat father, he died aged sixteen from blood poisoning after a minor surgery of removing a carbuncle, or boil from under his arm. Originally interred here, Jack was later buried in the Lincoln family Tomb at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield and then re-buried again in Arlington National Cemetery in 1930.

GEORGE JACKSON MIVART (1900)

– a zoologist and Fellow of the Royal Society (the lizard Emoia mivarti bears his name). Once a supporter of Darwin and natural selection, he later became one of its fiercest critics, and clashed with the Catholic Church, leading to his articles being placed on the Vatican’s index of forbidden writings, followed by Mivart’s excommunication. After four years in the Dissenters’ catacomb, his friends persuaded the Bishop to grant him burial in the adjoining St Mary’s Catholic Cemetery, arguing that his judgement and views had been clouded by illness (which was… diabetes).

S

To me, these catacombs are not just resting places. They are time capsules, preserving voices, hopes and passions of those who came before us.

It’s all too easy to be forgotten without elaborate memorials along the cemetery’s avenues. The marble splendour catches the living eye, while the residents of shadowy vaults are overlooked, with their remarkable stories drifting quietly into the darkness…

Hopefully this article helps to keep their memory alive.

So, who’s your favourite? Who intrigues you the most? Let me know in the comments!

Marta

MAIN SOURCE:
Paths of Glory by The Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery (1997)