General Register Office: Removal of Graves and Tombstones

RG 37

1923-2007

Copies of records of local authorities and the Church Commissioners relating to burial ground removals, although not all records have been received. A number contain a plan of the original place of burial, some with place of reinterment also.

Catalogued by location, site title and years covered by inscription on the tombs and gravestones; the main date corresponds to when the graves were removed. At first each transfer of records was listed alphabetically, but from RG 37/198 onwards transfers are listed in chronological order.

For matters relating to exhumation and reinternment (1887 to 1909) see HO 85

Public Record(s)

English

• General Register Office, 1836-1970
• Office for National Statistics, Registrar General, 1996-1996
• Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, Registrar General, 1970-1996

239 file(s)

Open

From 1978 Office of Population Censuses and Surveys

Topics

Census

Series is accruing

The origin of official custody of records of burial ground removals dates back to 1911 and arose initially out of a recommendation made by the Attorney General that such records be made and deposited with the local registrar of births and deaths. The Home Secretary agreed to the suggestion made by the Registrar General that they should be deposited instead with the miscellaneous records held by the General Register Office.

The provision was incorporated into various private bills under which the removal of graves was authorised, and subsequently in the Town and Country Planning (Churches, Places of Religious Worship and Burial Grounds) Regulations 1950 (SI 1950 No 792), the Disused Burial Grounds (Amendment) Act 1981 and schemes under the Pastoral Measures 1968, although it was omitted from the Local Authorities Cemeteries Order 1977 (SI 1977 No 204).