Colmac 2014 ©
The Southern Necropolis was established for two main reasons. Firstly, the old burial ground, first established in 1715 to meet the needs of the one time village of Gorbals was, by the late 1830’s, in an appalling state; the unfortunates "on the Parish" were buried in long trenches, left barely boarded over until the trenches were full; it had been used for mass pit burials in the cholera outbreak of 1832; the bought lairs were full, and not much space was left. Secondly, the city had its great Necropolis by the cathedral, and the new Sighthill Cemeteries-both places of great dignity. Gorbals, now joined by Laurieston and Hutchesontown, and full of merchants and professional people, and prospering mill-owners and engineers, aspired to similar dignity. But with a difference. The dignity was to be shared by all. This later point was emphasised at a public meeting in the Baronial Hall on the fifteenth of November, 1839. There it was proposed that the Southern Necropolis should be established “to enable the working classes to become proprietors of burying places similar to those in the Necropolis, or Sighthill." This meeting was chaired by...
