Brompton Cemetery

From 1854 to 1939, Brompton Cemetery became the London District's Military Cemetery. The Royal Hospital Chelsea purchased a plot in the north west corner where they have a monument in the form of an obelisk; the Brigade of the Guards has its own section south of that. There are 289 Commonwealth service personnel of World War I and 79 of World War II, whose graves are registered and maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. A number of veterans are listed in the Notable Interments.[19] Although the majority of war graves are in the dedicated railed section to the west – also containing 19th century services graves – a number of servicemen's graves are scattered in other areas. Besides the British there are many notable Czechoslovak, Polish and Russian military burials.

• Alexander Anderson – Royal Marines general
• Tomasz Arciszewski – Polish socialist politician and Prime Minister of Poland in exile[17]
• Sir Frederick Arthur – army officer
• James Atkinson – surgeon, artist and Persian scholar
• William Edward Ayrton – physicist
• Sir Squire Bancroft – actor and theatre impresario
• William Banting – undertaker and low-carbohydrate diet advocate
• Thomas Wilson Barnes – British Chess player
• Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh – Russian Orthodox émigré Metropolitan archbishop, medical doctor and author
• Joseph Bonomi the Younger – sculptor, artist, Egyptologist and museum curator
• George Borrow – author, traveller and linguist
• Peter Borthwick – politician
• Sir Leslie Brass – lawyer and civil servant
• Fanny Brawne – John Keats' muse, buried under her married name, Frances Lindon
• Stanley Brett – actor
• Sir James Browne – engineer
• Francis Trevelyan Buckland – zoologist
• Field Marshal John Fox Burgoyne and his son, Hugh Burgoyne RN – Victoria Cross recipient
• Henry James Byron – actor and dramatist
• General William Martin Cafe – Indian Mutiny hero and VC recipient
• Sir William Wellington Cairns – Australian administrator after whom the city of Cairns is named
• Sir Duncan Cameron – British Army general
• Louis Campbell-Johnston (1861–1929) – founder of the British Humane Association
• Marchesa Luisa Casati – infamous Italian quaintrelle, muse, eccentric and patron of the arts
• John Graham Chambers – founder of the Amateur Athletic Association
• F. B. Chatterton – theatre manager
• Hugh Childers – Liberal statesman
• Charles Coborn – music hall singer and comedian
• Henry Cole – founder of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Royal Albert Hall, the Royal College of Music, the 1851 Great Exhibition and inventor of the Christmas card
• Robert Collier, 1st Baron Monkswell – Lord Monkswell, Privy Councillor, Attorney General for England and Wales, QC, politician and judge and his wife Isabella Rose
• Robert Coombes – champion professional sculler
• Joseph Thomas Clover – pioneer of anaesthesia
• Hiram Codd – inventor of the Codd bottle
• Thomas Crofton Croker – Irish antiquary, devoted to the collection of Irish poetry and folklore
• William Crookes – chemist and physicist
• Samuel Cunard – founder of the Cunard Line
• Thomas Cundy III – architect
• Thomas Cundy (junior) – master builder
• Thomas Cundy (senior) – architect
• Agnes de Selincourt – missionary and academic
• Sir James Bevan Edwards – army officer
• General Sir William Henry Elliott – army officer
• Corporal Joseph John Farmer – VC recipient
• Nellie Farren – stage actress
• Henry Farrer – artist
• Terence Feely – playwright and author
• Captain Alfred Kirke Ffrench – VC recipient of Indian Mutiny
• Walter Forbes, 18th Lord Forbes
• Robert Fortune – botanist who introduced tea plant from China to India
• Sir John Fowler, 1st Baronet – railway engineer
• Tom Foy – comedian
• Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Craufurd Fraser – VC recipient
• Sir Charles James Freake – untrained architect and builder, creator of much of South Kensington[6]
• Admiral Charles Fremantle – explorer, founded the Swan River Colony (Western Australia) and the city of Fremantle which bears his name
• Princes George and Emanuel Galitzine – film producer and Spitfire pilot
• Brian Glover (1934–1997) – television and film actor
• John William Godward – painter
• George Godwin – architect, journalist, and editor of The Builder magazine
• George Goldie – "founded" Nigeria
• Dr Benjamin Golding – founder of Charing Cross Hospital
• Maude Goodman – artist, buried under her married name, Matilda Scanes
• Lucy Gordon – actress
• General Sir Charles Gore
• John Gunter – landowner, secured the south entrance to the cemetery
• Field Marshall Frederick Haines
• Arthur Haliburton, 1st Baron Haliburton,[20] British civil servant
• Corporal Thomas Hancock – VC recipient (unmarked grave)
• James Duffield Harding – landscape painter, lithographer and author
• Sir Augustus Harris – actor
• John Harrison – Royal Navy VC recipient
• Thomas Helmore – choirmaster and author of books on plainsong
• Admiral Algernon Heneage
• Ian Hetherington – video game pioneer
• Tim Hetherington – photojournalist
• Rowley Hill – Bishop of Sodor
• Sir Harold Hood, 2nd Baronet
• Colonel William Hope – VC recipient
• Jean Ingelow – poet and novelist
• John Jackson – boxer
• Geraldine Jewsbury – writer
• Mary Anne Keeley – actress
• Robert Keeley – actor and comedian
• William Claude Kirby – first chairman of Chelsea Football Club
• J.P. Knight – Inventor Of The First Traffic Light
• Dr. Antoni Kutek – wartime medical officer of the MS Batory. His grave is by Mieczysław Lubelski[17]
• Constant Lambert – composer and conductor
• Kit Lambert – music producer and original manager of The Who
• Percy E. Lambert – racing car driver
• Nat Langham – middleweight bare-knuckle boxing champion from 1843 to 1853
• John Leslie-Melville, 9th Earl of Leven
• Sir Edward Letchworth – prominent Freemason
• Frederick Richards Leyland – shipowner and art collector
• Bernard Levin – journalist, author and broadcaster
• Sir John Scott Lillie – Peninsular War veteran, local landowner, inventor and social reformer
• Ralph Robert Wheeler Lingen, 1st Baron Lingen (1819–1905)
• Johann Carl Ludwig Loeffler – manager of Siemens Brothers
• Marie Lohr – actress
• Archibald Low – inventor and author of science books
• David Lyon MP West Indies merchant, landowner and client of Decimus Burton
• Wiktor Łomidze – Georgian-Polish Naval officer
• James McDonald – president of the Anglo-American Oil Company
• Henry McGee (1929–2006) – actor
• John Benjamin Macneill – railway engineer
• George Heming Mason – painter
• General Sir Frederick Francis Maude – VC recipient
• Henry Augustus Mears – founder of Chelsea Football Club
• Alfred Mellon – violinist and composer
• Boyd Merriman, 1st Baron Merriman (1880–1962)
• Lionel Monckton – composer of Edwardian musical comedies
• Lieutenant-Colonel Hugh Montgomery – Royal Marines and intelligence officer, one of the IRA-assassinated Cairo Gang
• Henrietta Moraes – writer, artist's model and muse to Francis Bacon
• Roderick Murchison – geologist, originator of the Silurian system
• Adelaide Neilson – actress
• William Gustavus Nicholson, 1st Baron Nicholson – first Chief of the Imperial General Staff
• Matthew Noble – sculptor
• Count Stanisław Julian Ostroróg – Crimean War veteran, photographer to the Queen[17]
• Eugène Oudin – American baritone
• Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan – Anglo-Irish writer
• Fanny Bury Palliser – mother of eight children, historian and writer on lace
• Sir William Palliser – inventor and builder of Barons Court
• Emmeline Pankhurst – leading suffragette
• Private Samuel Parkes – VC recipient
• Mrs Howard Paul – actress and singer
• Charles Henry Pearson and his brother Sir John Pearson
• Sir John Lysaght Pennefather – general
• Henry Pettitt – actor, a noteworthy monument with a sculpted head of Pettitt
• John Birnie Philip – sculptor and father in law of the artist James Whistler
• Percy Sinclair Pilcher – inventor and pioneering aviator
• Valentine Cameron Prinsep – Pre-Raphaelite painter
• Sir Robert Rawlinson – military officer
• William Henry Macleod Read – political and social activist and merchant
• Fanny Ronalds – American socialite and singer
• William Michael Rooke – Irish composer
• Blanche Roosevelt – American opera singer and author
• Tim Rose – American singer-songwriter
• Alexander Rotinoff – architect
• William Howard Russell – journalist and war correspondent
• Sir Doyle Money Shaw – naval officer
• William Siborne – Army officer and military historian, maker of the Siborne model
• Samuel Smiles – biographer and inventor of "self-help"
• Albert Richard Smith – writer
• John Snow – anaesthetist and epidemiologist, who demonstrated the link between cholera and infected water
• Farren Soutar – musical comedy actor
• Lord Alan Spencer-Churchill – officer 8th Hussars
• General The Hon. Sir Augustus Almeric Spencer GCB – officer
• Charles Stent – dentist after whom the medical Stent is named
• H.F. Stephens – light railway pioneer
• Robert Story – poet
• Fred Sullivan, Thomas Sullivan and Mary Clementina Sullivan – brother, father and mother of Arthur Sullivan, composer
• Jerzy Swirski – vice-admiral and head of the Polish navy, 1925–1947[17]
• Richard Tauber – operatic tenor
• Sir David Tennant – Speaker of the Cape Parliament.
• William Terriss – actor
• Ernest Thesiger – character actor, The Old Dark House and Bride of Frankenstein
• Frederic Thesiger, 1st Baron Chelmsford – jurist and statesman
• Frederic Augustus Thesiger, 2nd Baron Chelmsford – Commander-in-Chief in the Zulu War
• John Evan Thomas – sculptor
• Brandon Thomas – author of Charley's Aunt
• Stefan Tyszkiewicz – engineer, inventor, car manufacturer, political activist
• Charles Blacker Vignoles – railway engineer, and inventor of the Vignoles rail
• Fred Vokes – actor and dancer
• Jessie Vokes – actress and dancer
• Victoria Vokes – actress
• Colonel Richard Wadeson – VC recipient
• Edward Wadsworth – artist
• Thomas Attwood Walmisley – composer and organist.
• Sir Robert Warburton – Anglo-Indian soldier and administrator
• Jane Wardle – clinical psychologist and pioneer of cancer prevention
• Flight Sub Lieutenant Reginald Alexander John Warneford – VC recipient
• Sir Philip Watts – naval architect, designer of the Elswick cruiser and HMS Dreadnought
• Sir Andrew Scott Waugh – army officer and surveyor, who named the highest mountain in the world after Sir George Everest
• Benjamin Nottingham Webster – actor, theatre manager and playwright
• Sir Thomas Spencer Wells – surgeon to Queen Victoria, medical professor and president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England
• Private Francis Wheatley – Crimean War veteran, VC recipient
• Jack Whitley – professional footballer
• Sir William Fenwick Williams – general, pasha and governor
• John Wisden – cricketer and founder of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
• John Lewis Wolfe – architect, artist and stockbroker
• Bennet Woodcroft – textile manufacturer, industrial archaeologist, pioneer of marine propulsion, patent reformer and first clerk to the Patent Commissioners
• Thomas Wright – antiquarian and writer
• General William Wylde (1788–1877) Colonel in Chief of the Royal Artillery
• Johannes Zukertort aka Jan Hermann Zukertort – Polish-Jewish chess master[17]

It was originally planned that Sir Arthur Sullivan of Gilbert and Sullivan fame would also be buried there with his family, until Queen Victoria insisted on his interment in St Paul's Cathedral.

In the late 1880s when the nearby Earl's Court Exhibition Grounds played host to the American Show with Buffalo Bill, a number of Native American performers in the show, died while on tour in Britain.[21] The Sioux chief, Long Wolf, a veteran of the Oglala Sioux wars was buried here on 13 June 1892 having died age 59 of bronchial pneumonia. He shared the grave with a 17-month-old Sioux girl named White Star believed to have fallen from her mother's arms while on horseback. A British woman, Elizabeth Knight, traced his family 105 years later and campaigned with them to have his remains returned to the land of his birth.[22] In 1997, Chief Long Wolf was finally moved to a new plot at Wolf Creek Cemetery (ancestral burial ground of the Oglala Sioux tribe) in Pine Ridge, South Dakota.

His great-grandson John Black Feather said "Back then, they had burials at sea, they did ask his wife if she wanted to take him home and she figured that as soon as they hit the water they would throw him overboard, so that's why they left him here."[1][23][24]

There was a Brulé Sioux tribesman buried in Brompton named Paul Eagle Star. His plot was in the same section as Oglala Sioux warrior Surrounded By the Enemy who died in 1887 from a lung infection at age 22.[25] Like Long Wolf, he took part of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. Paul died a few days after breaking his ankle when he fell off a horse in August 1891. His casket was exhumed in spring of 1999 by his grandchildren, Moses and Lucy Eagle Star. The reburial took place in Rosebud's Lakota cemetery. Philip James accompanied the repatriation.

Little Chief and Good Robe's 18-month-old son, Red Penny, who travelled in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show is also buried here.[26] His specific resting place within the cemetery is not known.

Two notable Polish figures originally buried in Brompton Cemetery were reburied in Powazki Cemetery, Warsaw:[17]

• General Michał Karaszewicz-Tokarzewski – founder of a Polish resistance unit in the Second World War and war hero, who died in Casablanca on 22 May 1964. The urn containing his ashes was reburied at Powazki in September 1992.
• Major General Felicjan Sławoj Składkowski – prime minister of Poland before outbreak of the Second World War, who died in London in August 1962, was reburied at Powazki on 8 June 1990.

Two other exhumations involved Polish bishops of the Polish Orthodox Church:

• Sawa, Jerzy Jewgieniewicz Sowietow, rus. Георгий Евгеньевич Советов – Gieorgij Jewgienjewicz Sowietow, (1898 in St Petersburg – 1951 in London) – bishop of the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church and bishop in the Polish Armed Forces during World War II.
• Bishop Mateusz, Konstanty Siemaszko (1894 in Babice – 1985 in London) – bishop of the Polish Orthodox Church.

Both were re-buried at the Orthodox Cemetery, Warsaw on 31 December 2012.[27]