Who are The Friends of Glasgow Necropolis?
A public Launch at The Merchants House on Wednesday 22nd June 2005 produced a committee and members from a wide range of backgrounds whose aim is to conserve the Glasgow Necropolis. Their interests include : family history research, cemetery history, architecture and sculpture, architectural conservation, natural history and ecology, tourism and hospitality and economic development.
Download & read The Constitution
What do we do?
The committee and members, along with GCC, decide priorities and the schedule of activities, which are divided into short, medium and long-term actions. The short-term activities include Tours and Publicity aimed towards conservation and promotion of the Necropolis as a cultural resource for both the people of Glasgow and for the many national and international visitors.
Why does the Necropolis needs Friends?
The Necropolis has suffered over the years from under-investment, natural decay and vandalism. We need to encourage investment and tourism, publicise its importance to the history and culture of Glasgow, and provide interpretive materials which help Glaswegians and visitors, international influence alike to understand the history and its architecture.
What’s so important about the Necropolis?
It embodies Glasgow at the height of its power as the Second City of the British Empire. The engineers, artists, iron founders, inventors, ship builders, locomotive makers, scientists, poets, factory owners, business people of Victorian Glasgow are buried here. Their monuments were designed by famous architects and sculptors of the time such as Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson and Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Necropolis was the first ornamental, garden cemetery in Scotland with a landscape inspired by the famous Père Lachaise in Paris. It is included in Historic Scotland’s Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes. The Necropolis is also home to many thousands of ordinary Glaswegians, who are buried in unmarked graves.
The Friends have links to the Merchants’ House, the Trades House, the Glasgow Natural History Society, Glasgow and West of Scotland Family History Society, Glasgow University, Strathclyde University, The Metropolitan College, various schools and the local community and have the full support of Glasgow City Council, which owns the Necropolis.
Patron
Alexander Stoddart
Office Bearers
- Annette Mullen – Chairperson
- Colin Campbell – Deputy Chairperson
- Colin Campbell – Membership Secretary
- Sarah Morrison – Treasurer
Committee
- Ruth Johnston – Project & Design Consultant
- Brian Johnston – Architectural Consultant
- Gary Nisbet – Cemetery Historian & Sculpture Consultant
- Scott Kerr – Website & Social Media Manager
- Annette Mullen – Tour Controller
- Richard Weddle – Glasgow Natural History Representative
- Morag Fyfe – Historical & Genealogical Researcher & Burial Records Project Manager
- Ben Douglass-Lee – Merchants House Representative
Associate Members
- Ashley Jamieson – Associate in the USA
- John Pelan – The Scottish Civic Trust
- Gwyneth Stokes – National Society of Cemetery Friends
—
Please visit our Monteath Appeal page
