Liverpool Roman Catholic Cemetery, more commonly known as Ford Cemetery, is situated at Ford near Litherland to the north east of the city. Administered by the Archdiocese of Liverpool, its regulations differ than those which apply to cemeteries in Liverpool and Sefton that are run by the local authority. According to William Farrer and J. Brownhill Victorian History of the County of Lancaster, 1907, Vol. 3, p99, "a Roman Catholic cemetery of 21 acres was opened in 1855..." at Ford near Litherland. A printed notice in James Gibson's Epitaphs...in Liverpool Churches..., Vol. 9, p 344, refers to "Liverpool Catholic Cemetery, Ford, near Seaforth" as having been established in 1855. Thomas Burke in Catholic History of Liverpool, 1910, p 142 states that the "vast Catholic population of the town, and the passing of the Intra-mural Act of 1859, created the demand for a Catholic cemetery" and indicated that it was blessed by Bishop Goss on the 22nd of September 1859.
By the 1850s space was becoming scarce in the graveyards of town churches such as St Anthony, Scotland Road and St Patrick, Park Place. A Canon Newsham had purchased an estate of twenty-four acres at Ford and the first burial in Ford Cemetery appears to have taken place on the 1st of January 1859. The crosses serving as the Via Dolorosa in the cemetery were actually blessed by Bishop Goss on Sunday the 25th of September 1859. The procession and ceremony were reported in the Liverpool Mercury, Monday the 26th of September, p3, col. 4 which states that "...the persons assembled on the ground could not number less than five thousand; and two or three hundred conveyances, including carriages, cabs, omnibuses and a large number of spring carts were stationed outside the ground". The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Ford, consecrated on 8th September 1861 served as a mortuary chapel to the cemetery. and the cemetery is home to some renowned figures in the city’s history. It is also home to a number of monuments, including the impressive Liverpool Cenotaph, a memorial dedicated to the fallen of World War I. Adjoining the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, it contains 242 Commonwealth burials of the 1914-1918 war, more than half of which are in the War Plot in the North corner of Section SJ, with the Plot marked by a screen wall with panels. There are also 187 Commonwealth burials of the 1939-1945 war. Those whose graves are not marked by headstones are named on additional Screen Wall memorial panels. Visitors to the cemetery can also explore the beautiful landscaping and flora of the grounds, making it a perfect place to take a leisurely stroll and admire the beauty of the area.
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| The impressive Liverpool Cenotaph |
Funeral services were first held at St Anthony’s, then in 1872 a mortuary chapel opened in Collingwood Street. Three days a week hearses would leave carrying coffins to Ford to their final resting place. There are now over 300,000 buried at Ford Cemetery, many of whom are in unmarked graves, commemorated by a memorial on the site of the chapel. This chapel was designed by Augustus Pugin and opened in 1861 but was demolished in the 1990s. A number of notable churchmen are buried at Ford. They include Father James Nugent, founder of a number of schools and refuges in the mid 1800s and whose values live on today via Nugent Care who support many of Liverpool’s most vulnerable ( there is more on his life here http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2021/04/a-liverpool-exemplar-james-nugent.html ). The cemetery is also where Alexander Goss, the second Bishop of Liverpool and first vice-president of St Edward’s College, was buried when he died in 1872.
Many of the graves in Ford Cemetery tell a tale of tragedy. They include that of Margaret Kirby, who was just seven when she disappeared in January 1908 whilst playing outside her home in Kensington. Her badly decomposed body was found seven months later and her killer was never caught. She was buried alongside her mother who had died the previous year and would be joined very soon afterwards by her father who died of a broken heart. Another family headstone commemorates Patrick Seagraves, an able seaman who was serving on the Lusitania when it was torpedoed in 1915 and whose body was never recovered.
Also standing proud in the cemetery is the memorial to a forgotten soldier from one of Britain’s most famous imperial wars. The fine Celtic cross monument is dedicated to Thomas Burke, who died in 1925, aged 64, but does not note his military career in the Battle of Rorke’s Drift in the Anglo-Zulu War, in South Africa, one of Britain’s most bloody colonial conflicts. The battle starting on the 22nd of January 1879 is depicted in the historical war film Zulu, a battle between the British Army and the Zulus, in which 150 British soldiers, many of whom were sick and wounded as patients at Rorke’s Drift Field Hospital, successfully repelled an army of 4,000 Zulu warriors. The named role of Private Thomas Burke features in the film as a defender of Rorke's Drift, in B Company, 2nd Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot. For this he was recipient of the South Africa Medal, with 1877-8-9 Clasp. Indicating just how mobile Britain’s forces were in the age of Empire, Thomas Burke also served in the Far East and was awarded the India General Service Medal with Burma 1885-87 Clasp.
see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2023/12/liverpools-dead-interesting-st-marys.html
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