The Memorial Card
A memorial card bearing no publisher's or printer's name.
Beckett Street Cemetery
Also known as Burmantofts Cemetery, or Leeds Burial Ground, the Beckett Street Cemetery was founded in 1842 and opened in 1845. One of the oldest, if not the oldest, municipal cemeteries in England, it sits on 16 acres, and the remains of an estimated 180,000 people are buried within it.
-- The Threat of Grassing-Over the Cemetery
Faced with heavy upkeep costs, declining income and increasing vandalism, the Municipal Services Committee decided in 1984 to close the Cemetery, clear away most of the memorials, and grass the site over.
A campaign was started, led by Sylvia Barnard, and joined by local residents, relatives of the dead, ecologists and historians who united to oppose this plan, and in 1985 it was scrapped.
It was agreed that the Friends of Beckett Street Cemetery, formed by Sylvia that year, would help and advise the officers of Leeds City Council in establishing a Management Plan which would ease maintenance and benefit wildlife in this heavily populated area.
-- Guinea Graves
Beckett Street Cemetery contains the most Guinea Graves in the country.
Standing row upon row, these gaunt headstones, with three or four basic-shaped tops, are the ‘Guinea Graves’, -- communal shared graves distinguished by the humanitarian concept of having erected over each, a sturdy headstone with minimal but identifying commemorative details.
If a poor family could scrape together £1 and 1 shilling (£1.05), or half-price for under 7’s, this would cover the cost of a shared grave and shared headstone, with up to 36 letters inscribed.
People were buried either side of the headstone, and both sides were headed ‘In Memory Of’ followed by the list of names and dates of death.
They are properly known as ‘Inscription Graves’. The practice dates back to around 1850, and continued until the 1930’s.
There was still the shame of a ‘pauper’s grave’ for the many penniless people buried in Beckett Street Cemetery, but those poor but not destitute people, who could afford a Guinea Grave, were at least spared that shame.
-- Woodbine Willie
Although not buried in Beckett Street Cemetery, Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy was one of the most celebrated and legendary chaplains of the Great War.
His mother and father are both buried at the front of the cemetery, close to the memorial of Lowena Ethel Harrison.
Geoffrey was the seventh of nine children. His father`s church St. Mary`s at Quarry Hill was a central feature of the Burmantofts area.
It was in this parish that Geoffrey`s profound affection for the poor was born. He won a place at Trinity College, Dublin where he earned a First in Classics and Divinity.
He was later ordained a priest, and in 1912 moved back to Leeds where he was attached to Leeds Parish Church and also helped his father at St. Mary`s.
In June 1914 Geoffrey opted to become vicar of St.Paul`s Church in Worcester in an equally poor parish. At the outbreak of the Great War, he urged every able-bodied man to volunteer.
Within 2 years he would have willingly eaten those words, having witnessed the brutality of war. His short poem “Waste” sums up his feelings:
"Waste of Muscle,
Waste of Brain,
Waste of Patience,
Waste of Pain,
Waste of Manhood,
Waste of Health,
Waste of Beauty,
Waste of Wealth,
Waste of Blood,
And waste of Tears,
Waste of Youth`s most precious years,
Waste of ways the Saints have trod,
Waste of Glory, waste of God - War!"
As Chaplain to the troops, Geoffrey would often be seen with two rucksacks, one full of copies of the New Testament, and one full of Woodbine cigarettes. He believed that his place was with the troops at the front line.
In 1917 he won deepening respect from the troops when he was awarded the Military Cross for “conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty” during the attack on Messines Ridge.
Woodbine Willie returned to his parish in Worcester after the war, dying in 1929.
