Balmoral Cemetery: The History of Belfast, Written in Stone

By Tom Hartley

Balmoral Cemetery

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blackstaff Press Ltd
• Release date: May 29, 2019
• ISBN: 9781780732428

Tom Hartley

Tom Hartley was born in Belfast in 1945 and has been active in politics for over forty years. He was both the General Secretary and National Chairperson of Sinn Féin, and in May 1993 he was elected to Belfast City Council, where he chaired several Council committees, including the Arts and Tourism sub-committees and the Policy and Resources committee. From 2008 to 2009 he was lord mayor of Belfast. He retired from the Council in September 2013 after twenty years service to the citizens of Belfast. In his spare time, Tom pursues his love of history and interest in the environment by organising historical walks through Belfast City Cemetery for Féile an Phobail. He works to highlight the importance of our burial sites as a repository of the political, social and economic history of Belfast. He is the author of the bestselling Written in Stone series - Milltown Cemetery and Belfast City Cemetery.

Book preview

Acknowledgements

ABBREVIATIONS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This is the third book in my Written in Stone series, so I am no stranger to the exploration of historical information. Yet the assistance I have received for this, and for my previous books, has never failed to surprise and humble me. Throughout the process I have been introduced to a wide variety of individuals who have always given their time and knowledge with generosity. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to Professor George Bain, who has read the drafts of my three books. His encouragement and support since the production of my first manuscript have been a constant. Thanks are also due to the Revd Dr John Dunlop and Philip Orr, who took time to read my completed manuscript. My friend Mary Ellen Campbell always responded quickly to my request for information, despite the pressures of her studies and her role as a Belfast City councillor. A special word of thanks is due to Valerie Adams of the Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland, keeper of so much wonderful information about the history of Presbyterianism in Ireland. David Hampton, who drew the maps in this book, and Stephen Stewart, with his knowledge of the topography of Belfast, have my deepest thanks.

My gratitude is due to Arthur Davidson and Damian John Cash for finding me the books that mattered. Special thanks are due to Colin Campbell and Jayne Byrne of Belfast City Council.

I would like to thank my editors at Blackstaff Press – Michelle Griffin, Helen Wright and Patsy Horton – my indexer, Jennifer Brown Patterson, and the rest of the publishing team.

In the writing of this book I have engaged with a range of individuals, and I wish to thank all of them for their help and support. They include: Nóilín Nic Bhloscaidh, Stephen Scarth, Revd David Campton, Roy Gamble, Kate Turner, David Craig, Vivienne Pollock, Stephen Weir, Chris Hillen, Maud Hamill, Linda Ervine, Lorraine Bourke, Ed Crawford, Oscar Ross, James O’Kane, Revd John Dickinson, Fr Michael Sheehan, Revd Jack Lamb, John Lynch, Jimmy Taylor, Tony McDonagh, Revd Chris Hudson, and Brian Hanna.

I am also indebted to the staff of the Ordnance Survey Land Registry Directorate, the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, the Linen Hall Library, Belfast Central Library and the Ulster Museum for their continuing help and support.

Turning a manuscript into a book requires the talent of many. In that process, a critical response to the manuscript is necessary, albeit with a slight adjustment of the ego. But criticism as a gift from a generous friend brings its own learning, and is a core experience for any writer. In this respect I was privileged to enjoy the friendship and benefit from the critical eye of the late Seamus Kelters. I had known Seamus for many years, when, by chance, I met him in the Belfast City Cemetery, where he was showing his sons some of the historical headstones. He offered to read the material I was preparing for the cemetery’s history. Seamus read my draft manuscripts for Belfast City Cemetery and Milltown Cemetery, and his insights and comments are now a part of the fabric of these two books. This book is missing his critical view, and for that we are all poorer. Ní bheidh a leithéid arís ann. Grásta ó Dhia ar a anam uasal.

A special word of thanks is due to my wife, Birgit, whose help and support sustained me through the four years of researching the Belfast Cemetery, Malone.

While the writing of this book represents a journey with many wonderful individuals, I alone take responsibility for what is contained in this book.

INTRODUCTION

For over twenty years, I have sought to tell the story of Belfast, and that of its people, by exploring the history of the city’s cemeteries. In every sense, those years represent a journey of discovery for me. I uncovered a multi-layered, complex and sometimes difficult history – from the dynamic industrialism of the Belfast Protestant community explored in Belfast City Cemetery, to the political narrative of the Belfast nationalist community found in Milltown Cemetery. In this book, I continue my journey with a study of Belfast Cemetery, Malone (today commonly referred to as Balmoral Cemetery), located on Stockmans Lane in south Belfast.

Due, in part, to an overgrown railway embankment, this small burial ground is almost completely hidden from the thousands of people who pass its locked gates every day. It wasn’t until May 2008 that I first decided to venture in to look at and photograph its headstones. During that first visit, I recognised the names of a few historical figures, such as the suffragist Isabella Tod, or the Revd Henry Cooke, a prominent conservative nineteenth-century Presbyterian minister. What I did not realise then was the magnitude of Belfast Presbyterian history that I would discover in the years of researching this cemetery. While each grave I studied added to my knowledge of Belfast and its citizens, it was the graves of the various Presbyterian ministers and lay personalities that attracted my curiosity and fed my quest for a deeper knowledge of the dynamic religious history and origins of Belfast Presbyterians and their congregations.

In every sense, by opening the gates of Balmoral Cemetery, I had opened the gates on to the lives of powerful Presbyterian ministers and lay members of its various Belfast churches. Their history revealed itself through political ministers, religious schisms, walkouts, internal controversy, the formation of congregations, the building of meeting houses and schools, its temperance and missionary work, and its history, rooted in the history of Presbyterianism in Scotland.

Opening the gates on to Balmoral Cemetery

As my research developed, I encountered ministers and congregations described as Non-subscribing, New Light, Old Light, Seceder, Covenanter, Burgher and Anti-burgher, Reformed, Arian, Evangelical, Trinitarian and Unitarian. In time, I came to understand these terms reflected numerous internal upheavals and divisions within the Church, and led to the formation of numerous branches of Presbyterianism. This historical backdrop enabled me to consider the impact of religious tensions on the formation of Presbyterian congregations and, in making sense of all this, I reached the conclusion that at the core of Presbyterianism is a deep tension. There exists an antagonism between the power of individual conscience, with its right to an individual interpretation of the scriptures and to worship as that interpretation dictates, and Presbyterianism as a form of church government, with its own rules and regulations associated with its church structure. This antagonism is key to understanding the history and structure of Presbyterian congregations, which are free to manage their own affairs, select their own minister and to elect their own elders.

A minister from a local church, along with one elder from its congregation, will meet regularly with other ministers and elders from other congregations in the region; this body is called a presbytery. All ministers and elders within this body are equal, whether they come from large or small congregations. Different presbyteries normally meet once every year to form the General Assembly. Geographically adjacent presbyteries used to meet in synods, but that layer of church government has not been used since 2003.

The next step in my research led me to study the history of Belfast congregations. In the early period of their formation, Presbyterians were wary of calling their buildings churches, preferring instead the term meeting house. This not only indicated the distinction between ‘Church’ as a body of Christians, and ‘church’ as a building, but was also a way to re-emphasise the separation from the Established Church. Congregations would often meet in private houses until they had the financial resources to build their own place of worship. This pattern continued into the nineteenth century, when newly formed Belfast congregations first established their presence in a variety of buildings located in, or near to, the district from which they drew their membership.

Belfast’s first Presbyterian meeting house was built c. 1668, near the north gate (now the corner of Royal Avenue and North Street). When a dramatic rise in Belfast’s population during the nineteenth century led to an increase in the number of congregations, several new meeting houses were built on the perimeter of the developing town. By the 1850s, a programme of expansion was under way, with new congregations being established closer to the emerging working-class communities of Belfast. This process was accelerated by the resurgence and growth of northern Presbyterianism following the evangelical religious revival of 1859: in its aftermath, nine congregations were founded in the greater Belfast area during the 1860s. That level of expansion was not seen again until the turn of the nineteenth century, when, between 1890 and 1908, eighteen new congregations were formed.¹ There were now approximately sixty-six congregations established in Belfast and, while the majority were Orthodox, a small number were Non-subscribing, Covenanter and Seceder. In addition, since the establishment of a congregation often led to the establishment of a school, by the end of the nineteenth century, approximately eighty Belfast schools and colleges had a connection to the Presbyterian Church, making Presbyterianism the dominant religious group in the city at the time.

Nearly twenty years passed before the founding of a new congregation at Stormont in 1927, but by 1946, fourteen more congregations had been formed – seven of which belonged to the Irish Evangelical Church. Between 1950 and 1994, as Belfast Presbyterians moved to new housing on the outskirts of the city, a further nineteen congregations were established.

Despite this apparent increase, by 2019 this once dynamic church had lost, through relocation and/or closure, forty-seven churches in the Belfast area. In 1926, many of its schools were transferred and leased to the Education Authority; and then to the Ministry of Education, following the Education (Northern Ireland) Act 1947.

In setting out to write this book I had sought to tell the story of a burial ground, but history, and my own curiosity, intervened to widen my area of research. The lives of those Presbyterians buried in Balmoral Cemetery are intertwined with the bigger, dynamic history of nineteenth-century Belfast Presbyterianism, and that of Belfast itself. This book is my attempt at interpretation: stitching together, and giving context to, the various elements of that story.

In studying the history of Belfast Presbyterian congregations, it struck me that Presbyterians focus their congregational history on the contribution of their ministers, while the history of their meeting houses and churches seems to be less important. Yet, with the disappearance of so many churches over the years, a silence has descended on the once vibrant history of these congregations. If we cannot physically see a congregation or its place of worship, we may grow deaf and blind to its history.

So this book attempts to look not only at the people behind Belfast Presbyterianism but also at the buildings. It is divided into four chapters and three appendices. Chapter 1 deals with the opening and subsequent history of the cemetery. Chapter 2 looks at the children, educators, traders, architects and soldiers – of both global imperialist and industrialised war – buried in the cemetery. Chapter 3 takes a more in-depth look at the story of Belfast Presbyterianism – its origins and historical roots, the numerous schisms and various divisions within it, and its emergence in Ireland and Belfast. In addition, there are profiles on the most prominent Belfast ministers, their mission to India, and their contribution to the cultural, political and intellectual life of Belfast. Chapter 4 is a potted history of Belfast Presbyterian churches and a list of schools. Appendix 1 is a list of all standing headstones in Balmoral Cemetery, Appendix 2 contains a series of tables that look at the patterns of growth and decline across Presbyterian churches and congregations, and Appendix 3 is a list of Methodist, Catholic, Baptist and Church of Ireland buildings and mission halls that have closed, and often disappeared entirely, over the past sixty years.

The gates of Balmoral Cemetery

Balmoral Cemetery may have been inter-denominational, but the historical narrative that emerges from its human stories is that of Presbyterianism: its extraordinary growth in nineteenth-century Belfast, and its decline during the latter half of the twentieth century (at least in inner- and middle-Belfast). It is a story both of hope and of sadness.

Footnote

1Between 1881 and 1901, the population of Belfast had gone from 208,122 to 349,180 (an increase of 141,058). In that same period, the Presbyterian population of Belfast had increased by 48,714.

CHAPTER 1

THE OPENING OF BELFAST CEMETERY, MALONE

In 1852, Revd Joseph Mackenzie (the first minister of Malone Presbyterian Church), and Revd Henry Cooke requested permission to carry out a Presbyterian graveside service at a Church of Ireland burial ground – one that was attached to a parish church (possibly Drumbeg). The request was denied by the church sexton. In response, the two men decided to establish their own cemetery on a piece of land adjacent to Revd Mackenzie’s church, on Stockmans Lane in the Malone area of Belfast.

The first indication that the two Presbyterian ministers had advanced their plans for a new burial ground came in a report in the Belfast News-Letter on 13 September 1854:

The want of an additional burial ground in the vicinity of this large and increasing town is now a matter of notoriety; and we are therefore rejoiced to perceive that the Presbyterian community have now an opportunity of obtaining, on eligible terms, the means of greatly enlarging their present cemetery at Malone, to such an extent as to render it by far the most spacious of any in the county, and also by the peculiarity of the site, of making it as picturesque and elegant as can possibly be desired. The means of obtaining this enlargement are expected to be provided by the purchase of lots, and we join with the managers of the undertaking in the hope that these means will be forthcoming. The Presbyterian residents of Belfast and its vicinity will surely combine to secure for their own and their descendants’ remains a decent and suitable resting-place, safe from the disgusting violations which more than one of the over-crowded grave-yards of the neighbourhood unfortunately, and we fear at present necessarily, present.

On 12 August 1855, Revd Mackenzie, John Getty of Beechpark near Belfast, and solicitor James Torrens, secured 37 acres and 3 roods of land in the lower Malone area (known as the Plains), on the southern outskirts of Belfast. Two months later, on 11 October 1855, 2 acres and 2 perches of this land were transferred to the trustees of the new cemetery – Revd Henry Cooke, Revd James Morgan, Revd John Edgar, James Kennedy, William L. Finlay, John Wylie, and William Hamilton – for a rent of one peppercorn per year, if demanded. The first manager of the cemetery was Andrew Briggs, but by 1866, a new manager, Robert Linn, had been appointed.

One of the most intriguing aspects of this story is the possibility that the opening of the new cemetery was unlawful: a local parliamentary act (Acts 8 & 9 Vict. C. CXLII: An Act for the Improvement of the Borough of Belfast) had been passed in Westminster on 21 July 1845. Section CCXI read,

… from and after the passing of this Act it shall not be lawful for any person or persons to make or open any new Cemetery or Burial ground on any land within the limits of this Act: Provided always, that nothing herein contained shall prevent the Enlargement of any present Burial Ground within such Limits.

Despite this, the trustees pushed ahead with their plan, perhaps feeling that, since the land would not be within town boundaries, they were outside the remit of the local parliamentary act.

The land to be used as the new cemetery was situated on the western side of the Turnpike Road (now called the Lisburn Road) leading from Belfast to Lisburn. Its frontage along Stockmans Lane measured 204 feet; its western perimeter was 386 feet; its northern perimeter was 300 feet; and its eastern perimeter along the railway embankment was 345 feet.

The deed map for Belfast Cemetery, Malone

On 13 October 1855, the Belfast News-Letter carried a description of the new grounds:

Belfast Cemetery, Malone, is now opened. We are happy to see it is constructed on the new, or garden style. Its walks and grounds are laid out much like the new Western Necropolis of Glasgow. Each platform is laid of 20, instead of 16 feet in width. In this way 4 feet are enclosed along its centre for trees, shrubs and flowers. By this arrangement the monuments will be under the trees, and the rural appearance of the cemetery, so essential to its beauty, will be in all time secured. Very large yews and other shrubs, as well as trees of a considerable size, having been planted

Belfast City Council in the cemetery, it has already a furnished appearance. Eight lots of ground laid out in squares, with clumps of flowers and shrubs in the centre of each, add much to the general effect. The cemetery is placed in the midst of the finest scenery. On whichever of its garden seats you rest you have some view of the splendid mountain ranges to the West and South, or of the Cave Hill and Belfast to the North. From the high character and distinguished position of the trustees, the cheapness and elegance of the cemetery, its appropriateness as to distance and soil; and above all, from the number and necessities of the population of Belfast at the present time, we venture to say that the two acres of the cemetery already constructed will, in a few years, be so occupied that the remaining extensive grounds will soon be added.

An advertisement in the Belfast News-Letter, 13 October 1855

From this observation on the ‘cheapness’ of the cemetery, it seems that the trustees wished for their burial ground to be available to all levels of society, rich or poor. In addition, an 1866 promotional flyer that outlined the cemetery’s official ‘Rules and Regulations’, stipulated that it was to be open to all denominations:

Ministers or clergymen of the various religious denominations shall be at liberty to officiate at the graves of persons of their own communion according to the forms and ceremonies of their respective churches or bodies.

The first recorded burial in the new cemetery was Revd Mackenzie’s mother, Martha Mackenzie, aged 74, who was buried in grave AI-3 in November 1855.

On 28 April 1875, new trustees were appointed: Revd Robert Montgomery, John Mackenzie (son of Revd Joseph Mackenzie), George Kidd, James Woods; John Wylie; Edwin Cooper Collier, and Mathew Black Mackenzie. By 1917, all of these men had either died or could not be traced. Edwin Cooper Collier died at 126 Albion Place, on 23 November 1891; Revd Robert Montgomery died in Newcastle, County Down, on 24 January 1897; John Wylie died in the Crichton Royal Institution, Dumfries, Scotland, on 19 November 1905; George Kidd died in Fitzroy Avenue Hospital, Belfast, on 9 March 1909; Mathew Black Mackenzie died in Seymour Street, Lisburn on 13 September 1910; and John Mackenzie died at 44 University Street, Belfast, on 28 April 1917. There is no record of the death of James Woods. After John Mackenzie’s death in 1917, the cemetery operated without trustees.

Layout of Balmoral Cemetery

There are 32 sections in the cemetery, all laid out in 57 rows of graves. Each row is referenced alphabetically and with Roman numerals. There are also seven squares of land containing graves and these are listed as I, II, III, IV, VI, VII and VIII (oddly there is no number V). Each grave is referenced by its square or row number, followed by a grave number. There are 21 rows that begin with the letter A; 10 with B; 4 with C; 8 with D; 6 with G; 3 with E; 1 each with F, I and K; and 2 with R.

At the first glance of the cemetery map, there appears to be no systematic approach in the referencing and layout of rows, but on closer inspection, a pattern begins to emerge. Apart from rows AX and AIX, which run the length of a grass path along the perimeter wall at Stockmans Lane, all other rows beginning with A are roadside graves along the tarmac paths. Rows beginning with B are positioned immediately behind an A row. C rows are four in from A rows, while (inexplicably) D rows are two in from A rows. The E and F rows are located on a triangular path in the north eastern corner of the cemetery; G sits five rows in from A rows; while I, K and R are located in the northern half of the cemetery.

When the cemetery opened in 1855, there were two categories of proprietary (purchased) graves. These were referenced in the cemetery’s promotional literature as ‘Higher Classes’ and ‘Working Classes’. Graves in rows A, B, C, E, F, and G were categorised as being for Higher Classes, while D rows were referenced as being for Working Classes. When the cemetery first opened, a grave in an A row cost £4.4.0.; graves in rows B, E and F cost £3.3.0.; graves in rows C and G cost £2.2.0.; and graves in row D cost £1.11.6.

There is some confusion about the status of rows H, I, K and R. They are not mentioned in relation to proprietor ground, but H, I and K are mentioned in relation to the erection of headstones. In the cemetery’s 1866 ‘Rules and Regulations’, a short paragraph reads, ‘In purchased ground alone can headstones, monuments and tombs be erected; and in Working Classes’ ground, D, H, I and K, headstones only’.

Belfast Cemetery, Malone pamphlet, 1866

Two mysteries exist regarding the referencing of cemetery land. The first is the term ‘Strangers’ Ground’, which first appears in the register for the burial of Margaret Logen on 1 September 1856, under the heading, ‘Where Buried’. A further 225 people were buried in the Strangers’ Ground in the years that followed – the last was on 4 March 1892 – and, of these, 30 per cent were children aged 12 months and under. The ‘Rules and Regulations’, when referring to the Strangers’ Ground, states ‘and to which no title shall be given’, which suggests that it was owned by the trustees.

The second mystery relates to the term ‘Church Ground’, which appears in the register eleven times between 15 May 1877 and 4 May 1882, and which may refer to a plot owned by a particular congregation. Given the lack of original maps, it is impossible to pinpoint the location of either the Strangers’ Ground or the Church Ground.

There are approximately 2,452 graves in the cemetery. This does not take into account those burials registered in Strangers’ Ground.

Stockmans Lane/Malone area, 1858

Burial Register

The cemetery’s burial register covers the period from November 1855 to 1 June 1896. It is held in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI), along with a burial notebook that records names, age at death and date of burial for the years 1908–11, but there remains a substantial gap in the information held for burials after the end of May 1896. This information gap is exacerbated by a consistent number of mistakes in the use of roman numerals in the register.

Proposed sale to Belfast Corporation, 1925–26

Circumstances that could not be foreseen at the time of its opening in 1855, limited the potential growth of Belfast Cemetery, Malone – now more commonly known as Balmoral Cemetery. Within fourteen years, on 1 August 1869, a new municipal burial ground, the Belfast Cemetery, was opened on the Falls Road. Professionally designed and laid out, the new municipal cemetery quickly became the most prestigious burial ground in the Belfast area, attracting the families of the city’s growing mercantile elite. The existence of the Belfast Cemetery, then the acquisition, on 23 March 1899, of forty-five acres of land for a new cemetery in Dundonald, redirected the majority of Belfast Protestant burials into these two new municipal burial grounds, and with so many burials going elsewhere, there was no incentive for the trustees of Balmoral Cemetery to enlarge their site. After the death of the last trustee in 1917,