Friends of Arnos Vale Cemetery

December 2012: Last Committee Meeting

A short formal 'wind-up' meeting of FAVC was held on Saturday 8th December at 2pm in the Anglican Chapel at the Cemetery but there was one subsequent FAVC committee meeting on Wednesday 12th December which was a joint meeting with the new Friends Group.

October 2012: Graves to Remember

On 7th October at the 25th Anniversary of The Friends of Arnos Vale Cemetery plans were unveiled for an ongoing project to rescue and mark graves at risk of being forgotten.

The Remembered Graves Project is an initiative lead by the Friends of Arnos Vale Cemetery to mark the graves of people of local or national significance that are at risk of being lost by providing memorial stones and/or grave markers so that the graves can be found by visitors and people of local interest can be remembered.

The project is sponsored by Co-operative Funeralcare and during 2012, ten graves received grave markers and three of these graves were selected for memorial stones:-

· William Budd - Physician, pioneer in the study of infectious diseases (1811-1880)

· Mary Carpenter - Social reformer in education and prisons, campaigner for women and children in Britain and India (1807-1877)

· Gronow Davis V.C. - Awarded Victoria Cross (Crimean War) (1828-1891)

· James Anthony Gardner - Governor of Bristol Gaol, prison reformer (1808-1882)

· James Hosken - First captain of Brunel’s ships Great Western and Great Britain(1798-1885)

· James Henry Kelly - Survived charge of the Light Brigade (1832-1887)

· Joseph Goodale Lansdown - Bristol Surgeon (1804-1871)

· William Lonsdale - Fought at Salamanca & Waterloo. Geologist (1794-1871)

· Samuel Stutchbury - Paleontologist, identified Bristol Dinosaur. Mineralogist mapped eastern Australia (1798-1859)

· A special stone was also placed at a place known to have been used for the burial of babies who died at birth or shortly afterwards in their memory.

The Friends have now launched the second year of the project and invite members of the public to Nominate a Grave to remember . The competition runs from October 2012 to 1^st March, after which all the applications will be reviewed by a judging panel of Friends, Trustees and cemetery staff. The successful Remembered Graves will be unveiled in early October 2013.

Nomination forms are available from Arnos Vale Cemetery’s East Lodge reception and nominations close 1^st March 2013.

You can view a list of interesting people who are now permanent resident in our cemetery here

You can read the 'Post' article about the Friends 25th Anniversary Event from the Monday 8th October edition here

It was announced at the Volunteers Forum this evening (Wednesday 26th September that the result of ballot about restructuring of the Friends organisation was as follows:

Total who voted for the restructuring proposal: 231 (i.e. 57% of total membership)

In the latest mailing, 'Friends' have been asked to vote on changing and simplifying the way that 'The Friends of Arnos Vale Cemetery' is organised and to fully integrate the group with 'Arnos Vale Cemetery Trust'. The Friends committee have been working on this for a long time and they recommend that Friends vote in favour of the proposal.

For many years The Friends of Arnos Vale (previously known as 'The Association for the Preservation of Arnos Vale Cemetery') campaigned successfully to save the cemetery with support from the City Council, the local newspaper ("The Post") and, most of all, many thousands of local people.

Now that the Cemetery is effectively managed by a Charitable Trust, there is no longer a need for a separate campaigning group but support from volunteers who work in the cemetery or organise money-raising events or make money donations are just as vital to ensure the future of the cemetery. In addition, Friends who have worked in the cemetery for a long time have lots of skills, experience and knowledge that is of great potential value to cemetery management. Putting it simply, the new setup will integrate the existing Friends organisation into a Volunteers Forum which should allow all this to happen and it is hoped that those hundreds of Friends who support the cemetery financially, will continue to do so with their membership and support organised events.