The photo above shows a section of the brick-built columbarium at Northern Cemetery, Hull. A Northern Cemetery website states that the Cemetery was first opened in 1915 so by study of the Corporation Burial Committee Minutes only tells the story of the early land acquisition as I am currently only up to 1908 (except for Castle Street disused burial site, s.p.b.s). The website dates the columbarium, and crematorium, to 1961.
The first mention of the site in the Minutes (see above) is from 1905, negotiations were ongoing re the purchase of land off Cottingham Road for burials. Again, apart from some ribbon development, this was an out-of-town site. It was proposed to buy 70 acres of land south of Cottingham Road at a cost of £150/acre. By the following year a problematic issue arose over road access to the site from Cottingham Road, this only the first of a number of obstacles raised by local landowners. A further problem was that certain local residents claimed the right to refuse the project because the law protected householders from living within 100 yards of a burial site. However, by invoking the terms of the Public Health (Interments) Act, 1879 it seems that the local authority could skirt this ruling.
By 1907 the Local Government Board (Central Government) had agreed to the ‘Salt Ings Lane’ site off Cottingham Road for the cemetery and to the borrowing of the necessary capital from the government, to be re-paid over 60 years. In the same year negotiations were ongoing with the steward of the two manors of Cottingham over the purchase of the land as well as the issue of ‘fog rents'(?). Later that year the Parks Superintendent was asked to submit a lay-out plan for the Cemetery site and by November the plan was accepted.
(to be continued).