Berkeley Burial Board and Successor Authorities

Minutes, clerk's papers for earlier Board and later Board and Joint Committee, financial records, records of burials, plans, cemetery rules and reputations, table of fees and other miscellaneous documents.

• <corpname>Berkeley Burial Board, Gloucestershire, 1854-1894</corpname>
• <corpname>Berkeley Burial Joint Committee, Gloucestershire, 1894-1974</corpname>
• <corpname>Berkeley Burial Committee, Gloucestershire, 1974-</corpname>

Records deposited by Mrs. Groves, clerk to Berkeley Burial Committee, 10 October 1990, and by Scott and Fowler, Solicitors, 26 October 1979

The first Burial Board for the parish of Berkeley was formed by the vestry in 1854 under the Burial Act, 1852 and the Burials (Beyond the Metropolis) Act, 1853, the burial ground in the parish churchyard having become overcrowded In 1856 the ratepayers of the tithing of Ham and Stone refused to allow their overseers to contribute to the Board's expenses out of the poor rate because the hamlet of Stone had its own Chapel in whose graveyard there was still ample room. The dispute was resolved the following year by all parties agreeing to abide by counsel's opinion, which was that Stone was not liable to contribute (see 2/5)

It appears from these records that the original Board was still in existence in 1859 (see 2/1), but there then follows a gap until 1865, when the records of a new body, the Burial Board for the parish of Berkeley (exclusive of the hamlet of Stone) begin

Under the Local Government Act of 1894, the Board became the Berkeley Burial Joint Committee and was composed of representatives of the parish meeting of Breadstone (until that body's abolition in 1935) and of the parish councils of Alkington, Berkeley Borough, Hamfallow, Ham and Stone (though Stone was still excluded from its jurisdiction) and Hinton

Under the Local Government Act of 1972, joint burial boards ceased to exist after 1 April 1974, but the Berkeley Joint Committee continued to operate under the same name until it resolved in December 1974 that the burial authority for the area covered by the Joint Committee should be the Berkeley Burial Committee. There was no immediate change of composition or structure

Members of the firm of Scott and Fowler served as clerks to the Board and Joint Committee.