In September 1863 an item in the Derby Reporter appeared, stating that in Ilkeston….
”some time ago great efforts were made to obtain a cemetery, but in consequence of a division of opinion the project was abandoned, and an addition was made to the churchyard. Recently a company has started to carry out the original intention. A very eligible piece of land has been purchased from Mr. Hobson and Mr. B. Wilson, of Derby has been appointed architect”.
In December 1863 tenders were requested by ‘the Ilkeston Cemetery Company’ for the building of a Cemetery Chapel, Sexton’s Lodge, Entrance Gates and Boundary Walls, for forming and levelling the ground, constructing roads and planting vegetation.
Thus Ilkeston General Cemetery was established on the west side of Stanton Road. Burials there were in three classes, each with a different charge.
Initially a Class 1 burial cost £1 4s, Class 2 cost 13s and Class 3 cost 8s.
Additional charges were imposed for ‘extra’s’. For example, for the privilege of selecting (rather than being allocated) a 3rd Class site there was an added charge of 5s.
Volume 1 of the burial receipts contained 250 listings where it appears that the address of the person paying for the burial was recorded.
In Volume 2, which began in February 1870, the style of receipts changed and the address of the person being buried was now recorded.
The first person to be interred in the new cemetery was Ann Shaw, wife of builder Thomas of North Street, who died on New Year’s Day of 1864. She was buried in Plot No. 6 in the ‘second class’ section of the cemetery on the afternoon of Wednesday January 6th. Her husband Thomas paid £4 4s 2d in fees and this included three guineas (£3 3s) as the cost of reserving Plot No. 5 for future use.
Both Ann and Thomas were members of the Primitive Methodist Chapel.
I have listed the burials in chronological order, in separate years. The age of the person buried was not always recorded and if it was it is sometimes difficult to read — in both these cases I have included the age, established or verified from other sources.
I have provided links from the table to the the’Grand Tour’ where more detail on the people mentioned may be found.
Be warned!! The notes in the last column of the table are my own.
