When searching for the burials of Roman Catholics in Liverpool the most probable place will depend on the date of death.

 
In 1859 the Liverpool Catholic Cemeteries Board opened Ford Cemetery, about five miles north of the city centre. By 1989 over 350,000 people had been buried there. The LCCB opened further cemeteries in Ainsdale and Yew Tree.
All the Corporation cemeteries had a section where Catholics could be buried: Toxteth Park (1856) Anfield (1863) Everton (1880) West Derby (1884) Kirkdale (1881) Allerton (1909) and Bootle (1913).
Between 1863 and 1875 equal numbers of Catholics were buried at Ford or a Corporation Cemetery. Thereafter the situation changed rapidly and from 1883 onwards 80% of Catholics were buried at Ford.
 
The remains of genuine paupers - those who died in a Workhouse or hospital, or perhaps aboard a ship, and who had no relatives willing or able to claim their bodies and pay for the funeral - were buried at the expense of the parish. The earliest official Parish Cemetery was opened in 1806 and many of the victims of the Irish Potato Famine were buried there. Up to 1890 Catholic paupers were buried at the Parish Cemetery. After this date they were buried, at the request of the religious authorities, in the Catholic section of Anfield Cemetery.
 
Before the opening of these large purpose-built cemeteries most people would have been buried in a graveyard attached to a church. The largest Catholic graveyard was at St Anthony's Church on Scotland Road. When the city centre graveyards were ordered to be closed in the 1850s Canon Newsham of St Anthony's was instrumental in purchasing and laying out the new cemetery at Ford. Of the earliest Liverpool churches (pre-1837) only St Mary in Highfield Street had no burial ground.   
The other large graveyard in the Liverpool area was at St Oswald in Old Swan. For a seven year period (1857-1863) almost 11, 000 people, mostly from the south and east of Liverpool city centre - ie Toxteth, Everton, Edge Hill etc were buried there.
A comparison of the number of burials at each of these burial grounds during the transition period (1856-1865) when burials at graveyards were phased out is show right.
YEAR ST ANTHONY FORD ST OSWALD ANFIELD RC TOTAL
1856 1729   285   2014
1857 1759   974   2733
1858 1332   1515   2847
1859   1427 1465   2892
1860   1439 1270   2709
1861   1866 1630   3496
1862   1737 1761   3498
1863   1940 1921 113 3974
1864   2929 372 1058 4359
1865   2846 61 1638 4545
 
Prior to the existence of these Catholic graveyards, and even after they had been established, many Catholics were buried in Church of England graveyards, particularly if the family had a long attachment to the church such as Sefton Parish Church. There will usually be a note in the register to indicate the burial is of a Catholic, Papist, Romanist etc. 
   
  • LIVERPOOL CATHOLIC CEMETERY BOARD
1859
1893
  • AINSDALE CEMETERY         
1883

 

 

LIVERPOOL RC Burials © 2009