Leeds General Cemetery Burial Registers Index

The Leeds General Cemetery Burial Registers Index is a database of transcriptions of all entries in the burial registers of the Leeds General Cemetery. The 25 registers hold information for each person buried at the cemetery, covering the period 1835-1992. There are over 97,000 entries in the Index. Digital images of the registers are available to view alongside the transcribed data.

The online Index can be used to find details of individuals, but there are also options to browse full lists of all the recorded causes of death and occupations, and view graphs of key statistics from the data.

The Leeds General Cemetery Company Archive is held at Leeds University Library Special Collections.

The Leeds General Cemetery Company was set up in 1833 with the aim to provide and maintain a public burial ground in Leeds. A committee was established to find a suitable plot of land, eventually choosing St George's Fields near Woodhouse Moor. The cemetery opened in 1835, with the first recorded burial on 23rd July.

The cemetery continued its work for well over a century, though from the 1930s onwards the site started to become overgrown and neglected. Then in 1956, the University of Leeds acquired the company by buying up all the shares. The University aimed to create an open public space with the cemetery site; to do so they obtained powers under the provisions of the University of Leeds Act (1965) to landscape the area. Headstones were removed and the site became a park under its original name of St George's Fields. Burials ceased in 1969, but the site continued to be used for scatterings of ashes until 1992.

This is a description of an Online Resource. Online Resources are websites that describe, interpret and provide access to archives. They often provide access to digital content but they may also describe physical materials. They usually cover a theme or topic, such as an individual, a movement, or an important historical event.

Access this resource online: https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/Leeds%20General%20Cemetery%20Burial%20Registers%20Index