Battle of Albert 1916 – Lancashire Fusiliers Fixing Bayonets. Source: Imperial War Museum.
During the nineteenth century the British Empire continued to expand, leading to significant conflicts throughout Queen Victoria’s reign (1837-1901). British and Imperial soldiers faced battles to maintain control across India, Africa, South-East Asia and Eastern Europe. Some men, buried in the General Cemetery, survived to take up their peacetime lives again. Others, commemorated on family memorials, were buried far away. The twentieth century was marked by the First World War (1914-1918), and the Second World War (1939-1945). Swathes of sons, husbands and fathers died in the First World War; very few were buried here but many were commemorated on family gravestones, and many of those commemorated lived within a few miles of this Cemetery. During the Second World War, not only were those in uniform killed as a result of enemy action, but also civilians. Almost 700 civilians died during the ‘Sheffield Blitz’ in the bombing raids which took place between 12th and 15th 1940, and 82,000 houses were damaged or destroyed. Some of those civilians were buried here, including two families, Susan Bielby and her three adult daughters, and Dinah Riley, her two young children, and her parents.
