The London Dead

Since 2014 David Bingham has been posting not quite once a week  on his blog The London Dead "stories from our cemeteries, crypts and churchyards". It's well illustrated withno lack of characters to draw on.

To catch up start with the list of all time popular posts at the top of the right hand column.

Grave Wax, Corpse Liquor and Kissing Dead Queens – the boundless curiosity of the Gentlemen of the 17th Century
John Aubrey in his prime. I have recently finished reading (with immense enjoyment I should add) Ruth Scurr’s ‘John Aubrey; My Own Life...

The Coffin Works & Warstone Lane Cemetery - a date with death in Birmingham
Is there a more entertaining way to spend a cold, dull, and wet day at the fag end of the year than in taking yourself off to Birmingham...

The Dead Keep Calling Me: 30 Years of Suicide in Brompton Cemetery 1888 -1908
If the spate of horrific deaths of gravediggers buried alive, the occasional freak fatal accident such as impalement on grave railings a...

St Patrick's Roman Catholic Cemetery, Leyton
 “A scruffy closely packed cemetery sited on the edge of the Central Line. Few trees and the lack of coherent landscaping contribute...

The posthumous life of Karl Marx, Highgate Cemetery
“On the 14th of March, at a quarter to three in the afternoon, the greatest living thinker ceased to think. He had been left alone for ...

The price of fame; Joyce and Ronald McQueen, Manor Park Cemetery and Crematorium
The night before Joyce McQueen was due to be cremated at Manor Park Cemetery her husband Ronald and the couple’s children had to decide...

Marriage is just a piece of paper - George William Lancaster and Louisa Mary Wilkinson (East Sheen Cemetery)
“ Chest tomb. Memorial to George William Lancaster (d. 1920) and Elisa (sic) Mary Lancaster (d.1922) by Sidney march (1876-1967). Portl...

"Anyone for a spot of buggery?"; Ernest Thesiger (1879-1961), Brompton Cemetery
Ernest rests with his mother and father in the family vault at Brompton Cemetery To the left of the main path, just before the catacom...

The parched ground shall become a pool and the thirsty land springs of water; Ernest Schwarz of the Kalahari (1873-1928), Willesden New Cemetery
“A most extraordinary story was told me by the late Professor Ernest Schwarz of the Rhodes University College. Many years ago, he said,...