FOWNC Newsletter No 48. September 2003.

Free to members. Price £1.00 to non-members

Chairman's Report - Bob Flanagan

There is much progress to report on conservation and other projects thanks to the continued efforts of Project Officer Jill O'Meara supported by Gideon Taylor, Ken Dry, and Don Bianco. Thanks are also due to the members of the Management Advisory Group (MAG) and Scheme of Management Committee (SoMC) for their continued efforts over the years - it is so good to see such progress resulting from the many hours spent in committee year after year.

Drainage Investigation

Atkins Water have reported on their investigation of the drainage issues at the cemetery. Their findings were presented to both the Management Advisory Group (MAG) and Scheme of Management Committee (SoMC). The recommendations approved by the SoMC were to:

• Water blast the existing drainage system due to the fact most drains are currently heavily silted and blocked;
• Design appropriate new pipework for those pipes found to be broken; and
• In areas where there is currently no identified drainage and water inundation is a major problem (mainly on the eastern side of the cemetery), insertion of shallow french drains is proposed. This however is subject to determining an appropriate pathway for the drains that will not interfere with graves. It was recommended that the proposed routes of any french drains should be investigated using ground probing radar and a trial of this technology in the cemetery is being planned.

Catacombs

The council have tendered a brief to undertake a condition report and restoration plan for the Catacombs to six different consultants recommended by English Heritage. The successful consultant will be awarded the contract in September 2003 and it is anticipated that the results of this survey and a restoration plan will be reported to the MAG and the SoMC in January 2004.

Memorial Repairs and Restoration

Stonemasons Stonewest Ltd are currently undertaking memorial repairs/restoration in the area surrounding Ship Path under contract from the Council. The programme includes repairs to nearly 30 memorials in addition to the restoration/repair of the Colls and Pepper memorials as discussed in the last Newsletter. Work on the repair of the massive Joseph Maudsley memorial (grave 4,361, square 77), long a health & safety worry, has also started as part of this programme. Memorial masonry works are also due to commence on the Douglas Jerrold memorial, which has been tendered separately to the memorial repair works. Ron Knee Conservation and Design have been commissioned to undertake this work.

Signage

Currently the draft design guide for the signage within the cemetery is complete. However, consultation with English Heritage is continuing and it is hoped that by the end of the 2003/04 financial year the guide will be finalised and the first of the new signs will be installed.

Memorial Archiving

The council are in the process of purchasing computer software and hardware in order to commence memorial archiving and memorial risk assessment at WNC. It is anticipated that the necessary computer system will be operating by November 2003 so that archiving works can commence.

Auckland Hill Railings

Dorothea restoration are 95 % complete on the restoration of the Auckland Hill Railings. Whilst the contractor has moved off site they are still coming back to WNC to undertake small scale refinements to any defective paintworks. The railings look splendid!

Burials in Reused Graves

As members will know Lambeth have produced a website giving details of illegally re-sold graves (http://www.lambeth.gov.uk/LCem/cgi-bin/lcem.exe?). Until recently no relatives of the original owners of these graves had come forward. However, in July we were pleased to welcome Janet Hobbs Johnson and her husband and daughter to the cemetery. Janet's ancestors include the vocalist John William Hobbs (1799-1877) and his son-in-law Dr William Hayman Cummings (1831-1915). Their gravestone (grave 444, square 112) has been destroyed and the grave re-used, and there is a stone commemorating the recent burial. Both Hobbs and Cummings were well known in their day (Hobbs was a Gentleman of the Chapels Royal and Cummings Principal of the Guildhall School of Music, for example) and feature in my booklet West Norwood Cemetery's Musicians (1998). Janet did not know her relatives were buried at Norwood until she looked at the website. We now need to re-open discussions with Lambeth about re-erecting a memorial on the grave.

Legend to Figure

Mrs Hobbs Johnson and family, West Norwood, July 2003

National Federation of Cemetery Friends Annual General Meeting - Pam Gray

This year the National Federation of Cemetery Friends convened their AGM at Wells, Somerset by invitation of the Friends of Mendip Hospital Cemetery. It was an unaccustomed early start for many, but 50 representatives from 17 groups made it.

Welcoming addresses from the Mayor of the City of Wells and by local MP David Heathcote-Amory, who was instrumental in saving the Cemetery from sale at auction for redevelopment in 2000, were followed by a tour of the Cemetery. In 1873 land was purchased at auction from the trustees of the estate of Edmund Davies for use as burial ground for the Somerset & Bath Lunatic Asylum. Over the coming years, the need for space resulted in extensions to the cemetery and the building of a chapel. Although the people the Cemetery served were excluded by Victorian society, they were, nevertheless, entitled to a decent Christian burial. Denied separate memorials, graves were marked by simple but elegant cast iron markers. All were subsequently removed, although many were salvaged and are now stored in the chapel. The last of the Cemetery's 2,900 burials took place in the early 1970s and the cemetery closed officially in 1997. The Cemetery is virtually devoid of memorials - just 17 scattered in 3 acres of ground - but is a nature reserve of unparalleled peace with a stunning backdrop of rolling green countryside. It remains as a memorial to a vanished piece of English social history.

The afternoon was given over to the formal business of the AGM. This included the latest news on the Local Government Finance Act 1992; an update on the HLF bid for a paid worker for the Federation which member colleagues from Sheffield General Cemetery were pursuing and will now be followed through by the incoming Chairman and officers; a plea from members for reasonably priced insurance following the recent steep increase in premiums; and a debate about the policy adopted by some local authorities of 'laying down' headstones on safety grounds (a subgroup was formed to look into these practices); and the Federation's continued productive work in the government's Burial & Cemeteries Advisory Group (BGAG) preparation of the consultation paper on burial law and cemetery provision. There was some questioning on the aims, function, direction, constitution, and composition of the Officer panel of the Federation. The election of officers resulted in Arthur Tait coming in as new Chairman, and re-election of Gwyneth Stokes and Ian Simpson as Secretary and Treasurer respectively. Edinburgh will be the venue for the 2004 AGM.

Legend to Figure

One of the last iron grave markers - Mendip Hospital Cemetery. Line drawing by Don Bianco.

James Busby (1802-1871) - Claudia Orange

* Reproduced from the New Zealand Dictionary of National Biography with permission

FOWNC Newsletter 25 (January 1996) carried an article about James Busby and his role in taking vines to Australia and in negotiating the Treaty of Waitangi. However, how and why he came to be buried at Norwood (grave 13,335, square 86) remained a mystery until this article was found on the internet. Note that the internet bibliography gives sources to further information about some of the people and events mentioned in the article. The fact of his burial at Norwood was likewise not known to those interested in Busby's life and work in New Zealand. Its of interest that his headstone records that he died 15 July 1871 aged 72É

Viticulturalist, British Resident, farmer, politician, newspaper editor

James Busby was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 7 February 1802, the second son of Sarah Kennedy and her husband, John Busby, a mineral surveyor and civil engineer. James Busby studied viticulture in France before accompanying his parents to New South Wales, Australia. The family sailed from Leith in the Triton; on 24 February 1824 they arrived at Port Jackson where James's father had been appointed to survey coal resources and to construct Sydney's water supply.

James Busby took up a grant of 2,000 acres in the Hunter River district and began to experiment with vine-growing; in 1825 the first of his several papers on viticulture was published in Sydney. At the same time he obtained employment in the public service as superintendent of the Male Orphan School's farm at Cabramatta, near Liverpool. When he lost this position in 1827 he was given temporary employment as collector of internal revenue.

Busby returned to England in February 1831. He made a four month tour of Spanish and French vineyards. He also impressed the Colonial Office with informative reports on colonial matters, including viticulture, pauper emigration, Crown lands, the jury system and the state of New Zealand. The last gained him appointment there as British Resident.

Returning to Sydney in October 1832, Busby married Agnes Dow at Segenhoe, on the Hunter River, on 1 November. They were to have six children. He left for New Zealand on the Imogene, arriving at the Bay of Islands in May 1833. Agnes Busby joined him the following year and they settled at Waitangi, where Busby erected a two-roomed residence.

Busby's main duties, outlined in instructions from Governor Richard Bourke, were to protect 'well disposed settlers and traders', to prevent outrages by Europeans against Maori and to apprehend escaped convicts. However, apart from the occasional naval visit, Busby was provided with no means of enforcing his authority. The British government refused to station a warship in New Zealand; as a civilian, Busby was not entitled to troops. His appointment to an independent territory precluded his holding magisterial office; he had no powers of arrest and was unable to take sworn testimony. His role was limited to that of a mediator in matters affecting British subjects alone, and a kind of race relations conciliator in disputes between Maori and Pakeha. Not surprisingly his record in both areas was unimpressive. Bourke, who disliked Busby and considered an inadequate appointment worse than none, had little sympathy for Busby's predicament; and Bourke's council, which resented New Zealand being a charge on the New South Wales treasury, treated Busby's requests for money with uncompromising parsimony.

Busby had been urged by Bourke to utilize chiefly authority, to direct Maori towards a 'settled form of government', so that their leaders might eventually accept collective responsibility for enforcing regulations on Maori and European alike. Busby resolved to commit his 'whole strength' to this objective. On 20 March 1834 he held a meeting of chiefs at Waitangi to choose a national flag. This flag was recognised by the Admiralty and New Zealand-built ships were granted certificates of registration by Busby in the name of the independent tribes of New Zealand. Busby regarded this as a first step to a 'confederation of chiefs'.

When it became known that Baron de Thierry was planning a sovereign and independent state in Hokianga, Busby called a second meeting on 28 October 1835. He persuaded 34 chiefs to sign a Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand, and to ask the Crown for protection. Further signatures brought the total to 52. The signatories pledged to assemble at an annual Waitangi congress to frame laws. Nothing came of the congress, but the declaration, acknowledged by the British government, provided one reason for making a treaty of cession in 1840. The declaration would later be significant as a mark of Maori national identity.

In his many dispatches to New South Wales, Busby made much of his difficulties. Outbreaks of tribal fighting in 1836-37 in the Bay of Islands, Rotorua and elsewhere, finally prompted him to report that he considered his position untenable. In May 1837 Bourke sent William Hobson to report on the situation. Busby recommended the establishment of a British protectorate with the Crown administering affairs in trust for all inhabitants. Chiefs would assist, while going through a period of tutelage, and the protectorate would be gradually extended over the country. However, Hobson's report, advocating the establishment of 'factories', and correctly considered by Busby to be inadequate, found favour with the British government. Hobson, early in 1839, accepted appointment as consul to negotiate a treaty of cession with Maori.

Busby was well aware of the shortcomings of his position as British Resident. His appointment had encouraged British trade but had provided no protection, so that British subjects at the Bay of Islands had petitioned repeatedly for more effective official support. Busby's role as kaiwhakarite, or intermediary, in dealing with Maori, was also limited in effect. However, it established the basis for Maori acceptance of further British intrusion. When Hobson arrived at the Bay of Islands on 29 January 1840 Busby gave him every assistance. He set up a meeting with northern chiefs at Waitangi on 5-6 February and played an important part in drafting the Treaty of Waitangi. Its second article, which incorporates guarantees of chiefly authority, seems to have been his work.

While British Resident, Busby had begun farming and trading. By 1838 he had imported several hundred sheep and two bullocks, and was developing a vineyard, extensive vegetable gardens, and a forest nursery at Waitangi. In 1839 he made further substantial land purchases near Waitangi and at Waimate, Ngunguru and Whangarei, where he planned a timbermill business with Gilbert Mair. He laid out a township called Victoria at Waitangi and offered lots to new settlers; but the scheme did not take off. Busby's landholdings were threatened by the decision to move the capital to the Waitemata, by Hobson's proclamations that all land purchased before January 1840 would be subject to investigation and by the subsequent decision to limit each claimant to 2,560 acres. Having declined a position in Hobson's administration, Busby went to Sydney in March 1840 to defend the validity of his purchases.

Leaving his wife and children in Sydney, Busby returned to New Zealand in November 1840. He found that the Waitangi property had been occupied in his absence and that its title was still under investigation. Although his claims to over 140,000 acres at Whangarei, Waipu and Ngunguru were also not settled, he persisted with a plan to develop a sheep and cattle station at Whangarei. At an estimated cost of over £4,000 he shipped stock and building materials from Sydney and, in 1840-41, brought labourers, shepherds, stockmen and mechanics to New Zealand at his own expense. But the stock did not flourish and the partnership with Mair was unprofitable. In June 1841 Busby went to Sydney in the first of several unsuccessful attempts to raise finance.

With Agnes Busby and their children he returned to the Bay of Islands in November. Despite insecurity of title they continued to farm the Waitangi property, and Busby took up storekeeping as well. However, by the mid 1840s he was in serious financial difficulties. He had been granted over 3,000 acres at the Bay of Islands in 1844, but nothing had come of the Victoria township, and his timber trading interests were badly hit by the depression of the early 1840s. He had to mortgage the Waitangi lands to meet debts. In June 1844 he sailed for America where he traded 30 tons of kauri gum to reduce his debts. Concerned to prove that his land purchases were legal, he consulted Judge Joseph Story, professor of jurisprudence at Harvard University and an acknowledged authority on Indian title, who, according to Busby, supported his claims. Busby then visited England and lodged an appeal with the government. He was back in New Zealand early in 1846, having rejoined his family in Sydney.

Concern about his landholdings, or lack of them, became an obsession. Although Busby held deeds of sale for the Whangarei lands from the original Maori owners, the government declined to make him grants and tried to induce the Maori to sell the land a second time to the Crown. The government finally persuaded Tirarau to sell by assuring him, incorrectly, that Busby had been compensated. Much of Busby's time over the next 20 to 25 years was devoted to seeking redress. He was involved, to no avail, in litigation over his Whangarei lands in 1858, 1859 and 1862. In 1864 he traveled to England to plead his case with the Colonial Office; he was refused a hearing. His case was finally settled in 1868 when he received scrip worth £36,800 in compensation. But he could raise only £23,000 cash for the scrip, and he had spent nearly £14,000 in legal costs.

Despite financial worries and increasing deafness (for which he used an ear trumpet), Busby took an active part in public life. He represented the Bay of Islands in the Auckland Provincial Council from 1853 to 1855, and again from 1857 to 1863. From 1861 to 1863 he was editor of a bi-weekly newspaper, the Aucklander, established in part to fight government policy on old land claims. He wrote a number of papers and pamphlets on land claims and on the early history of the colony. He considered himself the architect of the colony's foundation agreement, the Treaty of Waitangi, and resented other commentators. As time went on he became more and more inconsistent in his assertions.

In 1871 Busby visited England for an eye operation. At Penge, Surrey, on 15 July, he died of 'congestion of the lungs'. Three of his six children had predeceased him. Agnes Busby, who was with her husband in England, returned to live in northern New Zealand where she died, at Pakaraka, in 1889. She was buried in the Paihia churchyard.

James Busby, a well-read man of considerable ability, had welcomed the challenge of his appointment as British Resident, but it was evident from the outset that he would encounter difficulties. Neither the British nor the New South Wales government gave him adequate backing and Sydney newspapers were unrelentingly critical of 'Mr Borer Busby Junior'. He was sensitive to criticism and suspected affronts, and resented the appointment of Thomas McDonnell as Additional British Resident in Hokianga in 1835. An English visitor, with shrewd insight, observed that Busby was simply not 'Devil enough' to deal with a situation that called for a man of some 'Nouse'.

In his early New Zealand years Busby made few close friends, either European or Maori. In later years, embittered by his misfortunes, he became a tiresome memorialist for the cause of the 'old land claimants'. Partially bald, with a hawk-like expression, Busby stalked his enemies with a tireless zeal that critics alleged was fired by personal ambition. That the justice of his own case was tardily recognized has been largely overlooked. The picture regularly presented in the Auckland press, of a querulous and crotchety old nuisance, has obscured the significance of his role in establishing an official British position in New Zealand and his share in making the Treaty of Waitangi.

Legends to Figures

1. James Busby (1802-1871)

2. Busby's House at Waitangi (The 'Treaty House') photographed in the 1930s. The Treaty House is the only surviving colonial building that was prefabricated in Australia and shipped to New Zealand. It was the venue for most significant political events up to 1840.

Night Battle Woke Streatham and Norwood Families - Ernest J Stanton

During the 1939-45 war, the 31st Battalion of the Home Guard covered the Streatham and Norwood Districts. Apart from their regular duties and training, numerous manoeuvres were carried out in the Norwood district. Worthy of note is a 24-hour operation which took place in September 1943. The following is an account as published in the local press at that time (the writer took part). Thanks to Mrs Yvonne Brown for supplying this article, which was written by her father in the 1950s. Mr Stanton lived in West Norwood from 1934-62.

"There was no sleep for Home Guards and little for residents in the Streatham and West Norwood districts when night operations were held with regular army units on Saturday-Sunday. From dusk to dawn fierce fighting took place in the streets. The Home Guard took an offensive role and the newly formed Mobile Column of the 31st Battalion, fighting on Commando lines, brought the battle to an end earlier than was intended by the higher command. The 'enemy' were very tough Regulars and the objective was defended by a company of Guards. The Home Guard mustered for 24 hours, during which they drew, prepared and cooked army rations.

The prize at stake was a token representing the gold reserve of the Bank of England, which was supposed to be hidden in a strong spot in the Battalion area. It was presumed that the spot, through an indiscretion of a Bank official, was known to the enemy who landed at a Surrey aerodrome from gliders and troop planes. Parachutists in theory were dropped in and around Streatham. Darkness had fallen on Saturday when an enemy column, with tanks and armoured fighting vehicles was seen in the Norbury area. Action was joined and the local Home Guard accounted for a number of the enemy, but the column re-formed and got through. Meanwhile, other enemy columns were moving on West Norwood from Dulwich, Crystal Palace, and Beulah Hill. Reports were received regularly at 31st Battalion HQ of the progress of the enemy and as plans had been laid for defence in depth there were many strong points to hold up the enemy's move to Norwood. Units of the 31st Battalion in a shattered house on Streatham common gave an enemy column a taste of fire, and patrol clashes occurred around Streatham Common and Upper Norwood.

As the battle concentrated in West Norwood, Lt. Col. Greig moved from Battalion H.Q. within a few hundred yards of the gold to direct the Home Guard. Information poured in of the enemy from all quarters. A Home Guard dispatch rider almost ran into an enemy column but, hiding his motor cycle, lay for a time under some bushes and listened to the enemy's plans. He was later captured, but escaped in the darkness. An enemy dispatch rider ran into a trap of a factory unit, so becoming their guest. A patrol of the enemy, with extreme carelessness, ran into resting Home Guards in a back street, spending the rest of the night in a local café.

Prisoners taken into West Norwood HQ retaliated by setting off a thunder flash and claimed they had blown up the building. As the umpires had ruled 'no searching of prisoners', their claim was disallowed.

Machine gunfire and the winking signal lights which sped messages across the area, contributed to the realism. As one after another Home Guard post was wiped out, overrun or by-passed when the enemy succeeded with infiltration, Home Guard mobile columns (the tough Commando troops), moved in on West Norwood. A convoy of cars forming the front line transport of the Battalion took them to a secret rendezvous within a stone's throw of the gold.

Co-operating with the Battalion were units of the LPTB (London Passenger Transport Board) who drove buses across a main road down which the enemy were advancing and so blocked the road. Fighting became hot at the roadblock. Some of the enemy had made detours and concentrated their attack on the Guards unit holding the citadel. There were violent struggles and the umpires awarded heavy casualties as modern weapons were brought into use. The garrison at the roadblock became depleted, but fought on.

Then came the star turn. An hour before dawn, the Home Guard Mobile Column, which had been resting in Glennie and Broxholm roads, were ordered to counter-attack and they did so with the LPTB mobile reserve. The men went in with gusto. It was short and sharp and work with plenty of knocks.

Down Lansdowne Hill the Guards flung out individual intruders and only six of the enemy eventually got into the actual site of the gold. The attack was smashed by the swift stroke of the Mobile Column, and parties of the enemy in retreat were mopped up by defence points, which had been re-established. 'Enemy entirely routed - Home Guard overwhelmed them' signalled an umpire. There was not enough of the enemy left even to load the gold into lorries to carry it to Croydon for transhipment - even if the gold had been given them.

It was then the Zone Commander flashed to Streatham a message which more than rewarded the local Home Guards H.Q. for their night's work. It said simply 'Well done, 31st'.

I should have mentioned the spot for supposed hidden gold was, strangely enough, Norwood Cemetery!!"

Book Review - Paul Graham. Lord Hawke: A Cricketing Legend. James P. Coldham. Tauris Parke, 2003. Paperback, 224 pages, £11.99. ISBN 1860648231.

This is a paperback reprint of a work originally published in hardback by the Crowood Press in 1990. The title then was the slightly more sedate Lord Hawke - A Cricketing Biography. Quite why it was felt necessary to change the title is as mysterious as the decision to republish the work now, thirteen years after the hardback edition appeared.

The career of Martin Bladen, Seventh Baron Hawke of Towton (1860-1938) may be familiar to some members. It was the subject of an article by cricket historian Tony Bradbury in Newsletter 29 that appeared following a talk he gave to us 1995. Lord Hawke also features in Bob Flanagan's Norwood Sportsmen booklet.

As both titles of this work make plain, it is a book for those interested in the history of cricket in general and Yorkshire CCC in particular. Hawke the man remains elusive, as do the times through which he lived. The Boer war and the Great War feature only in so far as they disrupted the first class game. It is the cricket player, captain, administrator and promoter who dominates. The domestic seasons during which Hawke played (1881-1912) are chronicled, as are the winter tours to Australia, India, Ceylon, South Africa, the West Indies and America (North and South) which earned him the nickname of 'the Odysseus of cricket'.

The book is sympathetic to Hawke whilst recognising his failings. His notorious pronouncement 'Pray God no professional ever captains England' is ascribed to verbal maladroitness rather than to snobbery. Indeed, it is recorded how instrumental Hawke was in improving the lot of the county professional. The lofty patrician of legend is held to be something of a myth.

Coldham's writing style does occasionally grate. Yorkshire, the geographical area, becomes 'the county of the broad acres' with tiresome frequency. Yorkshire, the cricket team are invariably 'the Tykes'.

In the very brief summary of Hawke's life after his retirement from playing, Coldham recalls his marriage late in life and his death in Edinburgh. He does not record that his remains were cremated and interred, not in Scotland or Yorkshire, but in the plot containing the remains of his wife and her first husband in West Norwood. Happily, the monument still remains (grave 31,528, square 23).

[Note - could use picture of Hawke gravestone]

Review of Recent FOWNC Events - Jill Dudman

On 22 June a joint event between FOWNC and the South London Botanical Institute took place - a tour with the uses and folklore of plants as its theme, led by Roy Vickery, curator of flowering plants at the Natural History Museum. Nearly 40 people followed him around the cemetery as he picked up samples of various plants and spoke about folk traditions relating to each. Thus we learned that ribwort, chewed to a pulp, can be put on cuts to heal them, whilst ash provides an ear-ache remedy, by holding the leaf over a flame to extract the sap, which is put on a piece of cotton wool. Ivy soaked in vinegar is good for treating corns, or it can be boiled to form a solution for cleaning clothes. Dock leaves may be rubbed on nettle stings, whilst a drink made by boiling dock roots cleanses the blood. Nettles themselves, rich in vitamins, should be eaten three times in spring to cleanse the blood, and are a remedy for rheumatism and much else. Conkers from horse chestnut trees may be placed in wardrobes to keep moths away from the clothes. Hawthorn is very unlucky if brought inside a house, although its leaves are edible and known as bread-and-cheese. Yew, on the other hand, is highly poisonous; sacred in pre-Christian times, it is still frequently found in churchyards. The dandelion is thought to cause bed-wetting, although its name comes from its jagged appearance like lions' teeth (French dent-de-lion). St John's Wort protects against evil spirits, and elder has some association with witches and may be the tree Judas hanged from; however, elder does have many uses, ranging from keeping flies away to a great number of remedies, while the berries and flowers are made into wine. For much more information see The Oxford Dictionary of Plant-lore, Roy Vickery, 1995.

Thanks to the Norwood Society, we were able to have a small FOWNC information display in a corner of their stall at both the Crystal Palace Victorian Day, Sunday 13 July, and the Lambeth Country Show, Saturday/Sunday 19/20 July. Leaflets were handed out and numerous people expressed interest. The enormous time commitment that these events involve, especially the Country Show, precludes our having our own stall.

Forthcoming FOWNC Events - September-December 2003

General tours will be held on the first Sunday of each month (7 September, 5 October, 2 November and 7 December). September and October tours start at 14.30, and November and December tours start at 11.00, at the Cemetery main gate off Norwood Road, and they last for 1.5 to 2 hours. There is no formal charge but we welcome donations of £1 per person (£0.50 concessions) towards conservation projects.

Sunday 21 September: London Open House Weekend

For this London-wide event in which buildings normally closed to the public open their doors, there will be tours of the cemetery starting at the main gate at 13.30, 14.00, 14.30 and 15.00, lasting 1.5 hours and finishing at the Greek Chapel, which will be open for viewing/ The FOWNC bookstall will be there. Volunteers to help will be most welcome! The cemetery staff will also be holding the annual memorial service in the crematorium chapel.

Autumn Lectures

Talks will be held at Chatsworth Baptist Church, Chatsworth Way (off Norwood Road), SE27 (enter by second door on right in Idmiston Road) as detailed below, starting at 14.30. There is no formal charge but we welcome donations of £1 per person to help cover the hall hire.

Saturday 18 October: AGM and Lecture - The Jerrolds of Norwood - Michael Slater

Following this year's AGM, Prof. Slater, a long time member of FOWNC, will be speaking about the subject of his recent biography, Douglas Jerrold, playwright and humorist, considered the equal of Dickens and Thackeray in his day, and his son William, also a noted writer. The massive Jerrold tomb at Norwood (grave 5,452, square 97), demolished in the 1980s, is in course of being restored.

Saturday 15 November: Lecture - War memorials and their Friends - Maggie Goodall

Appropriately close to Remembrance Day, the conservation officer of the Friends of War Memorials will be talking about the history and variety of forms of war memorials, and the work done by her group to conserve them. Norwood's Cross of Sacrifice is situated just to the left of the entrance arch.

Other forthcoming events

Saturday 27 September, 10.00-17.00: Lambeth Archives Open Day

Minet Library, 52 Knatchbull Road, SE5. This year the theme is "That's Entertainment! Stage and screen in Lambeth". Some notable Lambeth entertainers and theatre managers are buried at Norwood. The FOWNC bookstall will be present - volunteers please!

FOWNC Committee &endash; September 2003

Chairman & Publications Officer:

Bob Flanagan, 79 Durban Road, London SE27 9RW (Tel: 020 8670 3265)

General Secretary & Tours Organiser:

Jill Dudman, 119 Broxholm Road, London SE27 0BJ (Tel: 020 8670 5456)

Hon. Treasurer:

George Young, 12 Swinburne Court, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8EP (Tel: 020 7274 5267)

Membership Secretary:

Rosemary Comber, 63 Bradley Road, London SE19 3NT (Tel: 020 8653 2741)

Conservation Coordinator:

Paul Graham, Flat 4, 9 St Andrews Road, Surbiton, Surrey KT6 4DT (Tel: 020 8287 6976)

Publicity Officer:

Pam Gray (Tel: 020 8761 3412)

The FOWNC Newsletter is published three times a year by the Friends of West Norwood Cemetery, 79 Durban Road, London SE27 9RW.

Registered Charity No 1063450. Member of the National Federation of Cemetery Friends

Website: http://www.anoraque.demon.co.uk/fownc/index.htm

If you would like further information about the Friends, please contact the Membership Secretary (address above). The annual subscription is £3. Copyright FOWNC, September 2003.