Open bible Source: Aaron Burden on Unsplash
Chaplains played an essential role in the new garden cemeteries of the nineteenth century. They were both religious leaders in the community and a part of the Cemetery administration as death itself was beginning to take on a bureaucratic aspect. In Sheffield General Cemetery, as with other Victorian cemeteries, there were separate chapels for Nonconformist and Anglican funeral services, reflecting the social and religious divisions of the day. These chapels were important in providing the means for dignified burials as the overcrowded and highly insanitary churchyards in the town were increasingly abandoned. However it was not until the Burial Act of 1880 that everyone was legally entitled to be buried in a churchyard and to have a service of any denomination read over them.
