Comments on: Music Hall Artistes Of Abney Park Cemetery

By: Fenton Gray

Fenton Gray — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 12:28:10 +0000

Hello.
I am the Great Grandson of Dan Crawley & Lilian Bishop. It’s great that they are featured on this site. I have been to the grave many times, especially when it was restored 10 years ago. I restarted my research on them both and have noticed that there are inaccuracies in your description. Would it be possible to correct them? I can provide you with the information. Many thanks.

By: Barbara Jacobs

Barbara Jacobs — Wed, 18 Aug 2021 12:28:21 +0000

My late grandmother lived in a house which overlooked Abney Park cemetary. As a child I spent many days looking out of the upper floor windows at the gravestones and found it all a bit eerie!

My late partner actually went on a tour but I never got round to doing this, although I know the area very well.

By: Bill

Bill — Mon, 16 Aug 2021 12:04:05 +0000

Herbert Campbell’s grave and monument look like porphyry! Most impressive. Swank, even.

By: Paul Loften

Paul Loften — Mon, 16 Aug 2021 11:43:05 +0000

I lived opposite the entrance to Abney Park cemetery for years . They used to run through the cemetery dressed as ghosts on Halloween . You could hear the comedians laugh from their grave .
Talking about laughter. I think Harold Steptoe and his cronies sang Dear old Pals on the horse and cart that carried his dad to his grave in the feature film. The old git woke up whilst they buried him and rose from the dead ,with a white sheet over his head, whilst all the mourners fled in panic. Thinking of this scene still leaves me in stitches .

By: Stephanie Watson

Stephanie Watson — Mon, 16 Aug 2021 11:27:50 +0000

Thanks so much for this! It was strangely coincidental, as I visited Abney last Saturday, 14th August 2021. I live in Sussex but many of my family lived in and around Hackney for about three hundred years, and I know of some buried at Abney, and undoubtedly many were non-conformists (rejected organised religion due to Catholic convent educations etc., fought in the battle of Cable Street etc.) There was a surprisingly rich history in my family of those who joined the army and went to India, Afghanistan etc., and also had many friends within different communities (ethnic and religious/non-religious). I can well remember my East End grandmother Kittie Watson singing music hall tunes, and praising the Jewish culture and influences in the East End, the superb bagels etc. I have one relative in particular: Emily Watson (born Huerta) who died in 1958 who is buried in Abney Park Cemetery. I’d love to find her grave…I tried on Saturday but just too overgrown, and I had only her plot number, and there were no signs to the specific area (it would have helped if the different paths had some discreet indication perhaps?, but also if I had ‘googled’ the correct map!) She is at: Sec. J03, Index 8S11, I have asked the Abney Park Trust to help me find her for a small charge…It ‘s nice to remember these people, the talented artistes, and well the many poor, but endlessly interesting and enterprising of the area, who loved and supported them…It was nice to see that the graves for those killed in the First World Ward had been cleaned/maintained? Quite touching, as often it was those who had so little, who gave so much…

By: Peter Hart

Peter Hart — Mon, 16 Aug 2021 10:33:15 +0000

Lovely read and pictures. Thank you GA.

By: Achim

Achim — Mon, 16 Aug 2021 09:16:11 +0000

I love the special atmosphere of cemeteries. And I also like to spend time there.

Love & Peace
ACHIM

By: Mathilde Grange

Mathilde Grange — Mon, 16 Aug 2021 09:14:35 +0000

What a beautiful place! Thank you, dear G.A.

By: Liz Trenow

Liz Trenow — Mon, 16 Aug 2021 09:10:45 +0000

How wonderful to learn about the music hall stars buried in Abney Park. It suggests that they were non-conformists or dissenters from the established churches, which is also true of many silk weavers and craftspeople who worked in Spitalfields. Abney Park became the ‘overflow’ for non-conformist burials after Bunhill Fields in the City of London was closed. My family began their silk weaving business in Spitalfields in 1720 and are still weaving in Suffolk today, 300 years later. Many of my ancestors are buried in Bunhill Fields and Abney Park, so I feel a great affinity for both of those places.

By: Bernie

Bernie — Mon, 16 Aug 2021 08:42:30 +0000

Alas alas! I spent my youth in Stoke Newington and passed Abney Part cemetery often enough, but it never occurred to me to wander around nor that such and so many notable persons were there interred. Alas alas!