Warwick Cemetery Index

Warwick Cemetery is located on the outskirts of Warwick. It was opened in 1859, and became the municipal cemetery for the town of Warwick. The cemetery is well kept, and contains many fine headstones, reflecting the many plots which have been purchased. It also serves Budbrook, where some battalions of the Warwickshire Regiment were located, and there are military graves in the cemetery. Paupers were also buried in the cemetery, as well as inmates of the asylum at Hatton, a few prisoners from Warwick gaol, and bodies released by the coroner.

As part of the administration of a burial at the cemetery, burial slips were created. These are single page forms which record the details of the burial, but often contain additional information in the form of handwritten notes which frequently include personal details. From the 1920's onwards, the slips are accompanied with a confirmation from the Registrar that a death certificate has been issued, and sometimes some correspondence. Taken together, the burial slips can provide some useful additional information for a genealogist, and as a whole may be of interest to a local historian.

The slips are stored in an old building which is generally weather-tight, but which is unheated. There is some damp and dust in the building, and also some insect activity. These are not ideal conditions for document storage, and in some cases the documents are starting to deteriorate, but it is a tribute to cemetery staff that they have survived at all. They have been carefully filed in folders, and as far as we can tell all the slips from the time when the cemetery was opened in 1859 still exist.

The slips were offered to the BMSGH for scanning before they deteriorated further. We agreed to scan the 59 folders containg the slips from 1859 to 1968 for which period there are about 15,000 slips. After scanning, volunteers from the BMSGH indexed the slips, recording the given name and surname on each slip. This index can be accessed from this web-site, and the search results provide a link to images of the original documents which can be viewed on-line.

Contents of a burial slip
Each burial slip contains much the same information for the whole period, as follows:-

  • Name & surname
  • Trade or profession
  • Address
  • Date of death
  • Burial details (plot, service, etc.)

See samples for 1860 and 1930

Certificate for disposal
 After about 1923 certificates for disposal generally accompany the burial slip. Their purpose was to allow the Registrar to confirm that the death of the person concerned had been properly registered, which was necessary for the burial to proceed after registration became mandatory. See example.
Hand-drawn burial cart made in 1859
specifically for the cemetery

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