As 26th May 2026 marks the 190th birthday of Sheffield General Cemetery, it seems timely to share the story of how it came to exist…
The Sheffield General Cemetery Company was established on 28th April 1834 by some of Sheffield’s leading industrialists and professionals. They were concerned with the serious health hazards caused by the dramatic rise in Sheffield’s population and its overflowing churchyards. Many were Nonconformists who were also affected and incensed by the attitudes of the Established Church towards the burial of the dead.
Among the original subscribers was Thomas Asline Ward, 1781-1871, who devoted himself to serving the town of Sheffield. He was a member of the Cutlers’ Company from 1809 to 1818, and Master Cutler in 1816. From 1817 to 1863 he served as a Town Trustee and for nearly two decades was Town Collector. Ward was a founder member of the Sheffield Literary and Philosophical Society and secretary to the Sheffield Book Club for sixty years. He was also a leading member of the Unitarian Chapel known as the ‘Upper Chapel’ in Sheffield.
Joseph Read, 1774-1837, was a Sheffield businessman and philanthropist, working in the field of precious metals. He bought Wincobank Hall in 1816 from where he, his wife and children actively supported many campaigns for social reform. A downturn in his business in the 1830s forced him to sell his estate but after his death, his daughter Mary Anne Rawson bought back Wincobank Hall and used it as a base for the Sheffield Ladies Anti-Slavery Society and many other campaigns for social reform.
Another subscriber to the Company was John Newton Mappin, 1803-1883, a Pearl Merchant of Sharrow Vale. Mappin later developed a successful brewery which made him a wealthy man. He gave generously to many local good causes including the building of St John’s Church, Ranmoor and not only gave his extensive private collection of paintings to the town but endowed the Mappin Art Gallery, in which that collection was first exhibited.
Discover the 190-year history of Sheffield General Cemetery and the people who have worked so hard to make it a success in the Trust’s publication, For the Living and the Dead, available to order here.
Picture credit: Thomas Asline Ward, One of the Founders of SGC, Picture Sheffield.