It is only natural that in London, to which so many from other countries have fled, and where so many foreigners have lived, worked, and died, there should be evidences left of their places of interment. Solitary cases of their burial among Englishmen are, of course, to be met with everywhere, and there are many such in the London graveyards. In Rotherhithe Churchyard is a well-known tombstone erected to the memory of Prince Lee-boo of the Pelew Islands, who died in 1784; in St. Ann’s, Soho, there is a tablet to that of Theodore, the last King of Corsica; there is the grave of an Indian chief in the burial-ground of St. John’s, Westminster, in Horseferry Road; and it is said that the first person interred in a part of Bishopsgate Churchyard was a Frenchman named Martin de la Tour, while this ground also used to contain a very old altar tomb with a Persian inscription round it to the memory of Coya Shawsware, a Persian merchant, who died in 1626. The edition of Stow’s “Survey,” published in 1633, contains a picture of this monument and an account of the funeral ceremonies which took place at the grave. Maitland also refers to it, but gives a totally different first name to the merchant. It is evident that for some time after his burial his son and other friends used to gather at the grave twice a day for prayer and funeral devotions, until driven away by the ridicule of the populace.

But there have been in London many special burial-grounds belonging to special groups of foreigners, and several of them remain. Foremost among these are the Jewish cemeteries.

Until the year 1177, the time of Henry II., the Jews in England were only allowed one burial-place. It was known as the Jews’ Garden and was outside the wall of London by Cripplegate, several acres being devoted to the purpose—a neighbourhood subsequently known by the name of Leyrestowe. When other burial-places were permitted, this ground was built upon, but the remembrance of it still lives in the name of one street in the district, Jewin Street, reminding us of the time of the bitter persecutions which the Jews suffered, and which are chronicled, to our shame, in English history.

In the first place it is to be noticed that the Jews, as a race, are particularly pledged to preserve their burial-places. This is not a law among them—so I have been told by the Chief Rabbi—but a binding obligation handed down from the most ancient times, and any disturbance of the burial-grounds which now exist is not permitted. No doubt it was totally beyond their power to prevent the “Jews’ Garden” from being covered with streets, its very size and position rendered it practically impossible to preserve, and it was probably annihilated during one of those periods when the Jews were expelled from England. Another exception which proves the rule is at Oxford, where the Botanic Garden, which dates from 1622, was made on the site of the Jewish burial-ground.

They also strictly observed the sanitary laws respecting burial laid down for them, and their cemeteries have not been overcrowded. Burial is only allowed at 6 feet from the surface of the ground, and only one body is in each grave, one coffin not being placed above another; and this rule has been carried out in the Jewish burial-grounds in London—again with one exception.

In the very large, old graveyard in Brady Street, Bethnal Green (formerly called North Street), there are walls running through it, and the southern half is higher than the northern half, having quite a hilly appearance. The following is the explanation. This half of the ground was originally allotted to “strangers,” Jews who belonged to no special congregation. About thirty years after it was full, a layer of earth, 4 feet in depth, was added to the ground, and it was used over again. As the coffins were again placed 6 feet from the surface, there still remained 4 feet of earth between them and the old ones beneath. As a result of this curious and interesting arrangement, there may be seen, in several cases, two gravestones standing up back to back, which represent the two graves below them. Here lie buried, with other members of the family, Nathan Mayer de Rothschild, the founder of the English house of Rothschild, Asher and Benjamin Goldsmid, and many another Jew famous on ’Change.

Within the Metropolitan area there are at present nine Jewish graveyards; there are others more lately acquired, and all still in use, at Willesden, West Ham, Edmonton, Plashet, and Golders Green, Hendon, The disused grounds which belong to the United Synagogue are those in Brady Street, Bethnal Green, E., Hoxton Street, N., Alderney Road, Mile End, E., and Grove Street, Hackney, E., and I cannot, unfortunately, call them well kept, but the neatest is the one in Alderney Road. In all of them the tombstones are upright, rather above the average size, and with inscriptions upon them which are almost invariably in Hebrew. The one in Hoxton is very small. It was originally formed for the use of the Hamborough Synagogue, Fenchurch Street, and was first used about the year 1700. All these grounds are old, part of the one in Alderney Road dates from about 1700, while the Brady Street Cemetery was formed in 1795. Many of the tombstones have at the top a representation of two outstretched hands with the thumbs joining, the symbol of descendants of Aaron, the High Priest. Others have a hand pouring water out of a flagon, and they are over the graves of the Levites whose duty in the synagogue is to pour water upon the hands of the Priests (the above-mentioned descendants of Aaron), who are nearly all named Cohen.

In Ball’s Pond, Islington, is the small cemetery of the West London Congregation of British Jews, which is still in use. Here some very large and extravagant tombstones may be seen, and the ground is very neatly kept. In Fulham Road (Queen’s Elm) is a dreary little ground belonging to the synagogue in St. Alban’s Place, S.W. I believe an occasional interment takes place here in reserve plots, but the congregation has provided itself with another cemetery at Edmonton. I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. R. Proctor for the photograph of this graveyard. Some few years back, before the Disused Burial-grounds Act was in force, a row of shops was built on the west frontage of the ground, the one body lying in that part being removed to another place. No doubt the freehold worth of the land was considerable at that time, and therefore the congregation disregarded their scruples concerning this one deceased member. The graveyard can only be visited between certain hours on Sundays, but the rest of the Jewish cemeteries have resident caretakers. In Bancroft Road, Mile End, is another dreary place, which, although in so crowded a district, is still in use. When last I visited it I was told there was room for about four more graves! It belongs to the Maiden Lane Synagogue. None of these grounds, except that at Ball’s Pond, have proper paths in them; they have been entirely filled with graves, between which a few narrow lines like sheep-tracks wind about the grass.

Lastly, there are the cemeteries of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews—one, closed for burials, behind the Beth Holim Hospital in Mile End Road, and one, nearly five acres in extent and still in use, just beyond the People’s Palace. These are neatly kept, the former, or at any rate a part of it, being actually turned into a sort of garden for the patients in the hospital, with trees in it, paths and seats. The latter is bare of trees or shrubs, but is divided into plots, with paths between. In both of them the tombstones, unlike those in the other Jewish grounds, are flat, either slabs on the ground or low altar tombs; and in the large ground there are many children’s graves, marked by much smaller altar tombs dotted amongst the large ones, which are very unique and interesting. The Hebrew inscription at the entrance tells us that this is “The House of the Living,”—“Beth Hayim.” The cemetery was acquired in 1657, and contains the remains of the ancestors of Lord Beaconsfield, the Eardley family, Sampson Gideon, the Samudas, D’Aguilars, Ricardos, Lopes, and many others who trace their descent from Sephardi Jews.

Hitherto it has not been possible to secure any of the Jewish graveyards as public gardens, the feeling of the community is against it, but the day may yet come when the Council of the United Synagogue will allow the experiment to be tried.

The burial-ground of the Greeks in London is an enclosure in Norwood Cemetery, where some elaborate monuments may be seen. The Mohammedans can practise their rites at Woking.

There is no special place at the present time, I believe, where Danes and Swedes are buried, but their churches, with surrounding graveyards, were situated close together, in Wellclose and Prince’s Square, E. The church in Prince’s Square is still the Swedish church of London (Eleanora), and there is a notice at the corner of a turning on the south side of Cable Street, St. George’s in the East,—“Till Svenska Kyrkan.” Here, in a vault, are the remains of Emmanuel Swedenborg himself, while the garden contains many tombstones, especially an inner enclosure which was filled first. But the building now situated in Wellclose Square is no longer the Danish or Mariner’s Church, the site is occupied by schools and mission buildings in connection with St. Paul’s, Dock Street, the present seaman’s church. Nor are there any tombstones in the garden, although it is certain that many Danes and many sailors were buried under the church, and in a surrounding graveyard, which was probably an inner enclosure like that in Prince’s Square. Mention of it is made by Northook in 1773, and by Malcolm in 1803; and there is a picture of the church in Maitland’s “History of London.” The following account from the “Beauties of London and Middlesex (1815)” is also of interest:—“At the extremity of this parish is Wellclose Square, which has also borne the name of Marine Square, from the number of sea officers who used to reside in it. It is a pretty little neat square; but its principal ornament is the Danish church in the centre, in the midst of its churchyard, planted with trees.... This structure was erected in 1696, at the expense of Christian V., King of Denmark, as appears by the inscription: ‘Templem Dano Norwegicum intercessione et munificentia serenissimi Danorum Regis Christiani Quinti erectum MDCXCVI.’ Gaius Gabriel Cibber was the architect, who erected a monument within this church to the memory of his wife Jane, daughter of William Colley, Esq., and mother of Colley Cibber, the famous dramatist. The architect himself is also buried here.” The Flemish burial-ground was in the district of St. Olave’s, Southwark. It adjoined a chapel in Carter Lane, and before its demolition was used as an additional graveyard by the parishes of St. Olave and St. John, especially the former. When the railway to Greenwich was made this ground disappeared, and part of its site forms the approach to London Bridge Station.

In Milman’s Row, Chelsea, there is a quaint and curious burial-ground belonging to the Moravians. The adjoining buildings have passed out of their hands, their present chapel being in Fetter Lane, E.C. In 1750 Count Zinzendorf purchased two acres of land (a part of the garden and stables of Beaufort House) of Sir Hans Sloane, about one acre of which was set aside for burials, and divided into four parts—the first for male infants and single brothers, the second for female infants and single sisters, the third for married brothers and widowers, and the fourth for married sisters and widows. The stones are flat on the grass and very small, not more than about 11 or 15 inches by 10 or 12 inches in size, and the ground was closed for interments about the year 1888.

There is no purely Dutch place of interment in London now. Besides the Dutch Church in Austin Friars (the survival of the priory of the Augustine Friars), which has lost its churchyard, they used to have a few chapels which seemed to change hands, sometimes belonging to Dutch and at other times to German congregations. Such was Zoar chapel, in Great Alie Street, Whitechapel, which is now a Baptist conventicle. It had a fair-sized burial-ground behind it at the beginning of the century, the site of which is covered by houses and a forge. One day recently I knocked at the door of this chapel, hoping to be allowed to look round it, in order to make sure that no part of the yard was left. The woman who opened it, when I politely asked if I might go in, said “No!” and slammed the door again at once. One meets with varied receptions in different places, Two German churches, with graveyards attached, were also in this neighbourhood—the Lutheran (St. George’s), in Little Alie Street, and the Protestant Reformed Church, in Hooper Square. The latter has entirely disappeared, the railway covering its site. The former church still exists, with the little yard behind it, separated by a wall from the adjoining schoolyard, but the entrance from Little Alie Street has been bricked up.

The precinct of the Savoy had a distinctly foreign flavour about it, but the Savoy Chapel itself is now the only remnant left of the large group of buildings which were used at different times as palace, hospital, barracks, and prison, and finally demolished in 1877. The churchyard is probably even older than the church. It is now a neat little garden, in the possession of Her Majesty the Queen, as Duchess of Lancaster, and laid out, chiefly at her cost, for the use of the public. This is the burial-ground described by Dickens, in All the Year Round, with some of his tenderest touches, and of which he says: “I think that on summer nights the dew falls here—the only dew that is shed in all London, beyond the tears of the homeless.” But the Savoy used to contain one, if not two, German chapels, besides a French Jesuit chapel and a meeting-place for Persian worship. The German church (wrongly called Dutch on Rocque’s plan) had a burial-ground on its west side, which is marked on the ordnance maps, except the very latest, as it survived until 1876, when the human remains were removed to a cemetery at Colney Hatch. Now its site is covered by part of the new block of buildings which include the Savoy Chambers and the Medical Examination Hall. The Rev. W. Loftie’s book, “Memorials of the Savoy,” gives a full and interesting history of the Precinct, and is, as is usual with his works, compiled with care and truthfulness; but beyond simply mentioning the existence of the German burial-ground he has nothing to tell of it. We should have liked to know what the gravestones were like, and whether any persons of distinction were interred there.

We now turn to the French in London, and these have to be divided into the Roman Catholics and the Huguenots. No doubt Frenchmen and Frenchwomen have been laid to rest in the burial-grounds attached to all the Roman Catholic churches, and especially in All Souls Cemetery, behind the chapel of St. Mary, in Cadogan Place, Chelsea, which chapel was built by M. Voyaux de Franous, a French Émigré clergyman, and consecrated in 1811. Large numbers were also interred at St. Pancras, the eastern end of the old churchyard receiving, in consequence, the name of “Catholic Pancras.” But this is the part which has been so much disturbed and appropriated by the Midland Railway Company, and what remains of it is some dreary, dark slips under the railway arches, and groups and hillocks of tombstones which were moved into the western part of the ground, where, amongst other illustrious graves, are those of Dr. Walker, of dictionary fame, Mary Woolstoncraft Godwin, and William Woollett, the engraver.

About the year 1687 between thirteen and fourteen thousand French Protestants, driven from home by the intolerance of Louis XIV., settled in London, some in Spitalfields, others in the district of St. Giles’ and Seven Dials, in Stepney, and in Wandsworth. There was a French church at Wandsworth, which subsequently fell into the hands of the Wesleyans, and the Huguenots who settled in this locality were chiefly engaged in trade as hatters. As a result of these settlements we find their graves in Bethnal Green Churchyard and other places, but especially in the East Hill burial-ground at Wandsworth, where many French Protestants of note were interred, and where there are some fine old headstones and altar tombs. It is a picturesque ground between the two roads, but, with the exception of a pathway through it, it is not open to the public.

Foreigners now have to be buried in the cemeteries, and many a strange service or ceremony has been held at the graveside of those who belong to other climes, especially, perhaps, in Kensal Green Cemetery, Norwood Cemetery, and the others that are non-parochial. The Jews and the Greeks are, I believe, the only communities of strangers who still keep up separate burial-grounds of their own in London.