Warwickshire Burials

Each record includes a transcript of the original burial registry or details from the monumental inscription. Many of the transcripts are accompanied with an image of the original burial register. Each record will vary depending on its source, but most will include a mixture of the following information:

• Name

• Age

• Birth year

• Death date

• Burial year

• Place

• Church

• Minister

• Cemetery

• Inscription – this field is limited to the records from Clifton Road Cemetery, Rugby, created by the Rugby Family History Group. You will find the information recorded on the individual’s grave stone. Grave stones usually record the name of the individual’s spouse, children, and/or parents. Also, some grave sites may have more than one person buried in the same plot.

• Father’s name

• Mother’s name

• Residence

• Number in grave

• Register number

• Family history society contact – this field is limited to records from the Birmingham and Midland Society of Genealogy. You will find a link to the society’s website in the Useful Links and Resources, where you can order a copy of the original record.

• Notes

• County and country

The historic county of Warwickshire was abolished in 1974. The landlocked county was bordered by Staffordshire, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, West Midlands, Worcestershire, and Northamptonshire. The county previously included the cities of Birmingham, Coventry, and Solihull. These records are not intended to be a comprehensive collection of all the burials in Warwickshire. For more detail about what towns or villages are included in the Warwickshire Burials, view our Warwickshire place list available in Useful links and resources section.

Within this collection, you will find records from a variety of sources. A significant number of the records were transcribed by Findmypast using the original burial registers found at the Warwickshire County Record Office. Other records were created by the Rugby Family History Group, the Birmingham and Midland Society for Genealogy & Heraldry, FamilySearch, and Pam Batstone and Mary Williams.

Warwickshire burials includes the interment registers from four Birmingham cemeteries transcribed by the Birmingham and Midland Society for Genealogy & Heraldry (BMSGH). For records from these cemeteries, BMSGH can supply an image of the relevant entry from the interment register by contacting Yvonne Harrison by email at [email protected] or by post to 54 Exe Hill, Torquay, Devon, TQ2 7RA.

You will receive a copy of the original entry in the interment register, providing the name of the deceased as well as the individual’s address, age, cause of death (if shown), informant (e.g. parent or other relative), and officiating minister. To comply with the Data Protection Act, if the date of death is less than 75 years ago, the address of the informant will be blanked out. For further information about the cost of records and discounts available, please view the link Birmingham and Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry in the Useful links and resources section.

Key Hill Cemetery

Key Hill Cemetery, in the Hockley district of Birmingham, was opened in 1836 and was one of the first non-conformist burial grounds in the city. The original interment register, containing over 60,000 records, has been filmed by Birmingham and Midland Society for Genealogy & Heraldry (BMSGH). There have been a few recent burials. The cemetery has not been actively used since World War Two.

Warstone Lane Cemetery

Warstone Lane Cemetery, alongside the Jewellery Quarter in the Hockley district of Birmingham, was opened in 1848. The original interment register, containing almost 94,000 records, has been filmed by BMSGH. The use of the cemetery has declined significantly since the 1960s.

Handsworth Cemetery

Handsworth Cemetery was opened in 1901 and was expanded in 1911 by the Birmingham City Council. The cemetery contains grave sections for various denominations including Free Church, Muslim, and Roman Catholic.

Witton Cemetery

The cemetery sits on 103 acres on Moor Lane in Witton, making it the largest in Birmingham. The cemetery first opened in 1863 as the Birmingham City Cemetery. Amongst the thousands buried at Witton are 459 war graves from the First World War. In 2013, the cemetery was declared as full capacity and no longer able to accommodate new burials except for those in existing family plots.

From around the 7th century, burial in Europe was under the control of the Church and could only be carried out on consecrated church ground. From the early 19th century, however, the burial of the dead in graveyards (burial grounds within churchyards) began to fall out of favour. This was due to rapid population growth in the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, continued outbreaks of infectious disease near graveyards, and the increasingly restricted space in graveyards for new interment. Entirely new burial places were established far from heavily populated areas at the outskirts of towns and cities. Many new cemeteries were municipally owned and therefore independent from churches. In Britain, this movement was initiated by dissenters who wanted non-denominational burial places, and was also driven by public health concerns. The Metropolitan Burial Act of 1852 legislated for the establishment of the first national system of government-funded municipal cemeteries across Britain, paving the way for an enormous expansion of burial facilities throughout the 19th century.

In the 19th century, urban burial grounds were viewed as public open spaces and were thus professionally designed to be attractive places to visit in their own right. They were often designed by people who designed public parks and were seen as public landscapes as well as burial grounds.

The chocolatier John Cadbury, who was born in Birmingham in 1802, can be found in Warwickshire Burials. In 1824, he opened a grocer’s shop that sold foodstuffs such as cocoa and drinking chocolate, which Cadbury prepared using a pestle and mortar. The manufacturing business started seven years later when he opened a factory in Crooked Lane in Birmingham. By 1842, Cadbury’s were selling 16 types of drinking chocolates and 11 cocoa varieties. John Cadbury retired in 1861 due to ill health and handed the business over to his sons, Richard and George, but it wasn’t until 1905 that the first Dairy Milk bar was made. John Cadbury died on 11 May 1889 and is buried in Witton Cemetery.

The Warwickshire Burials record set was created through an amalgamation of work by

• Findmypast

• Birmingham and Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry

• FamilySearch

• Pam Batsone & Mary Williams

• Rugby Family History Group