Putney Vale Cemetery Explained

Putney Vale Cemetery and Crematorium in southwest London is located in Putney Vale, surrounded by Putney Heath and Wimbledon Common and Richmond Park. It is located within of parkland. The cemetery was opened in 1891 and the crematorium in 1938. The cemetery was originally laid out on land which had belonged to Newlands Farm, which was established in the medieval period.^[1]

The cemetery has two chapels, one being a traditional Church of England chapel and the other being used for multi-denomination or non-religious services. It has a large Garden of Remembrance.^[2]

There are 87 Commonwealth war grave burials from the First World War and 97 from the Second World War in the cemetery. Six Victoria Cross recipients have been buried or cremated here.^[3] The burials are scattered throughout the grounds of the cemetery and a Screen Wall Memorial has been erected to record the names of those whose graves are not marked by headstones. Those who have been cremated at Putney Vale Crematorium also have their names recorded on these panels.^[4]

Notable burials and cremations

Funerals held at Putney Vale include those of:

• Ellinor Lily Davenport Adams, journalist and children's author
• Major General Ernest Alexander, World War I Victoria Cross recipient
• Julie Alexander, actress and model (cremated)
• Dev Anand, Indian film actor (cremated, ashes scattered in Godavari River, India)
• Peter Arne, actor
• Arthur Askey, comedian and actor (cremated)
• Sir Stanley Baker, Welsh actor and film producer (cremated, ashes scattered near Ferndale, Glamorgan)
• Peter Bathurst (actor)^[5]
• Sir Henry George Outram Bax-Ironside, British diplomat, ambassador to Venezuela, Chile, Switzerland and Bulgaria
• Robert Beatty, actor (cremated)
• Lady Evelyn Beauchamp (née Herbert), one of the first people to enter the tomb of Tutankhamun
• James Beck, actor noted for his role as Private Joe Walker, the Cockney spiv in the BBC sitcom Dad's Army (cremated)
• Admiral The 1st Baron Beresford, following state funeral at St Paul's Cathedral
• John Bindon, actor
• Major-General Charles Guinand Blackader, WWI general^[6]
• Lillian Board MBE, athlete (cremated)
• Reginald Bosanquet, journalist and newsreader for Independent Television News
• William Boulter, World War I Victoria Cross recipient (cremated)
• Kate Carney, famed music hall singer and comedian
• Howard Carter, archaeologist and Egyptologist, noted as a primary discoverer of the tomb of Tutankhamun^[7]
• Michael Coles, actor^[8]
• Harry Cunningham Brodie, MP for Reigate (1906–1910) and major in the Middlesex Yeomanry
• Lt-Col. Sir Henry Dickonson Nightingale, 13th Baronet, Royal Marine Officer during the Second Anglo-Burmese War in 1851–52
• Admiral Herbert Charles Campbell da Costa, Royal Navy flag officer in the First World War
• Alain de Cadenet, racing driver
• Sandy Denny, singer, songwriter and member of Fairport Convention
• Henry Fielding Dickens, barrister and the eighth of 10 children born to author Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine^[9]
• Clive Dunfee, racing driver
• Sir Jacob Epstein, sculptor
• Sid Field English comedy entertainer^[10]
• Golchin Gilani, 20th-century Iranian poet
• Alexander Gordon, co-owner of the Niles Tool Works
• Lieutenant Colonel Harry Greenwood, World War I Victoria Cross recipient
• Kenelm Lee Guinness, local resident and member of the Guinness brewing family, early motor racer and entrepreneur behind the famous Putney Vale-made KLG spark plugs
• George Dickinson Hadley, gastroenterologist (cremated)^[11]
• Lieutenant Colonel Reginald Hayward, World War I Victoria Cross recipient (cremated)
• Eugen Hersch, artist and portrait painter whose subjects included President Paul von Hindenburg and Joseph Joachim
• Sir Edward Hulton, 1st Baronet, newspaper proprietor
• James Hunt, Formula One Grand Prix world champion (cremated)^[12]
• John Ingram, 32, a grave digger at Putney Vale who died in 1894 in a freak accident, hit in the chest by a stray bullet from the rifle range at Wimbledon Common
• Samuel Insull, Anglo-American utilities magnate
• J. Bruce Ismay, chairman of White Star Line and a passenger of its ship RMS Titanic, and wife Julia Florence Ismay
• Hattie Jacques, comedy actress notable for the Carry On films (cremated).^[13]
• Alexander Kerensky, exiled former Russian prime minister and leading figure in the Russian Revolution of 1917
• Sir John Lambert CMG KCVO, soldier and diplomat
• Hazel, Lady Lavery, painter
• Sir John Lavery, painter
• Sir David Lean CBE, film director
• Rosa Lewis, hotelier of the Cavendish, Jermyn Street, known as the "Queen of Cooks" and "Duchess of Duke Street"^[14]
• Sir John William Lorden, resident of Ravenswood, Putney Hill and former president of the National Federation of Property Owners and Ratepayers^[15]
• Daniel Massey, Canadian-British actor and Golden Globe award recipient
• Hilary Minster, British actor
• Kenneth More, character actor post-Second World War (cremated)
• The 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn, OM, politician (ashes buried here after cremation at Golders Green)
• Kenneth Nelson, actor (The Boys in the Band)
• Joe O'Gorman, music hall performer and founder of the Variety Artistes' Federation
• Sir William Orpen,KBE, RA, RHA, Irish artist and portrait painter, prolific official war artist during World War I
• Jennifer Paterson, TV chef of Two Fat Ladies fame (cremated)
• Lance Percival, actor and singer (cremated)
• Jon Pertwee, actor, noted for Worzel Gummidge, and Doctor Who (cremated)
• Roy Plomley OBE, creator of the world's longest running radio programme, BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs
• Nyree Dawn Porter OBE, actress (cremated)
• Sir Edward J. Reed, 19th-century constructor of the Royal Navy, MP, author and railway magnate
• George Reid, former prime minister of Australia
• Alfred Joseph Richards, First World War recipient of the Victoria Cross
• Sir Ronald Ross, discoverer of malaria transmission by mosquitoes
• William Scoresby Routledge, British ethnographer, anthropologist and adventurer
• Charles Rumney Samson, pioneer naval aviator
• Eugen Sandow, the Prussian known as the father of modern bodybuilding
• Lieutenant Colonel Harry Norton Schofield, Boer War Victoria Cross recipient
• Richard Seaman, noted pre-Second World War Grand Prix driver for Mercedes-Benz, who still maintain his grave
• Vladek Sheybal, a Polish character actor
• Joan Sims, comedy actress who appeared in many Carry On films (cremated)
• Edwin Tate, son of Henry Tate of Tate & Lyle sugar refining fame, in a family mausoleum inscribed with the family motto "Thincke and Thancke"^[16]
  • C. W. Stephens (c.1846–1917), British architect, best known for Harrods Vesta Tilley, born Matilda Alice Powles, a male impersonator who was a star in both Britain and the US for over 30 years

External links

• Photo Gallery of Putney Vale Cemetery
• Find A Grave at Putney Vale Cemetery
• Profile of Putney Vale Cemetery
• Putney Vale Cemetery on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website

51.4403°N -0.2439°W

Notes and References

1. Web site: Wildcroft Manor. wildcroftmanor.com. 17 September 2008. https://web.archive.org/web/20120617131713/http://www.wildcroftmanor.com/history.htm. 17 June 2012. dead.
2. http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/Home/CommunityServices/Cemeteries/default.htm Wandsworth Borough Council website
3. Web site: Burial Location VC Holders South West London . 8 September 2012 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170903074810/http://www.victoriacross.org/lonswest.htm . 3 September 2017 . dead.
4. Web site: cwgc.org.uk.
5. https://enable.imagestor.co.uk/ Putney Vale Cemetery and Crematorium search
6. https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/75448233/BLACKADER,%20CHARLES%20GUINAND Commonwealth War Graves Commission
7. https://books.google.com/books?id=AyK0_weGa20C&dq=howard+carter+putney+vale&pg=PA1 Howard Carter
8. Announcements: Deaths, The Daily Telegraph, 5 May 2005 (pg.24)
9. Web site: Dickens Fast Facts. David A. Perdue. charlesdickenspage.com.
10. News: 16 February 1950 . Sid Field . 3–4 . The Stage.
11. "Deaths", The Times, 16 August 1984, p. 24.
12. https://sports.vice.com/en_au/article/aeb7xk/the-british-grand-prix-star-who-flew-the-flag-for-nazi-germany sports.vice.com
13. https://books.google.com/books?id=pDDBAgAAQBAJ&dq=hattie+jacques+putney+vale&pg=PT154 Hattie
14. Web site: Rosa Lewis, Cavendish Hotel London. The Cavendish London.
15. Web site: Glasgow Herald - Sir John Lorden and Rent Restriction.
16. Web site: Tate family, Thincke and Thancke, family motto of the Tate family. PBase.