West Side The Egyptian Avenue and the Circle of Lebanon (previously surmounted by a huge, 280-year-old
Cedar of Lebanon, which had to be cut down and replaced in August 2019) are both Grade I
listed buildings. The west side of the Cemetery is characterised by elaborate feature tombs, vaults and winding paths dug into hillsides. At the highest point, the Terrace
Catacombs and the Tomb of
Julius Beer are both Grade II* listed. In 1967 the Dissenter's Catacombs were declared unsafe and demolished. Three houses were subsequently built on the site.
The Grey House, built in 2008, is visible from the West Side of the cemetery on Faraday Path.
Notable West Side interments •
Henry Alken (1785–1851), painter, engraver and illustrator of sporting and coaching scenes •
Jane Arden, Welsh-born film director, actress, screenwriter, playwright, songwriter, and poet •
John Atcheler, 'Horse slaughterer to
Queen Victoria' •
Edward Hodges Baily, sculptor •
Beryl Bainbridge, author •
Abraham Dee Bartlett,
zoologist, superintendent of the
London Zoo known for selling the popular African elephant
Jumbo to
P. T. Barnum •
Julius Beer (and family members), owner of
The Observer. •
Francis Bedford, landscape photographer •
William Belt, barrister and antiquarian, best known for his eccentric behaviour •
Mary Matilda Betham, diarist, poet, woman of letters, and miniature portrait painter •
Eugenius Birch, seaside architect and noted designer of promenade-piers •
Edward Blore, architect known for his work on
Buckingham Palace and
Westminster Abbey •
Edwin Brett, publisher and pioneer of serialised sensational weekly fiction and '
penny dreadfuls' •
Jacob Bronowski (ashes), scientist, creator of the television series
The Ascent of Man •
James Bunstone Bunning, City Architect to the
City of London •
Robert William Buss, artist and illustrator •
Edward Dundas Butler, translator and senior librarian at the
Department of Printed Books, British Museum •
Edward Cardwell, 1st Viscount Cardwell, prominent politician in the
Peelite and
Liberal parties, best remembered for his tenure as
Secretary of State for War •
William Benjamin Carpenter, physician, invertebrate zoologist and physiologist •
Joseph William Comyns Carr, drama and art critic, gallery director, author, poet, playwright and theatre manager •
John James Chalon, Swiss painter •
Robert Caesar Childers,
scholar of the Orient and writer •
Edmund Chipp, organist and composer •
Charles Chubb, lock and safe manufacturer •
Antoine Claudet, pioneering early photographer, honoured by
Queen Victoria as "Photographer-in-ordinary" •
John Cross, English artist •
Philip Conisbee, art historian and curator •
Abraham Cooper, animal and battle painter •
Thomas Frederick Cooper, watchmaker •
John Singleton Copley, Lord Chancellor and son of the American painter
John Singleton Copley •
Sir Charles Cowper, Premier of
New South Wales, Australia •
Addison Cresswell, comedians' agent and producer •
George Baden Crawley, civil engineer and railway builder •
Charles Cruft, founder of
Crufts dog show •
Isaac Robert Cruikshank, caricaturist, illustrator, portrait miniaturist and brother of
George Cruikshank •
George Dalziel, engraver who with his siblings ran one of the most prolific Victorian engraving firms •
George Darnell, schoolmaster and author of ''Darnell's Copybooks'' •
David Devant, theatrical magician •
Alfred Lamert Dickens, the younger brother of
Charles Dickens •
Catherine Dickens, wife of
Charles Dickens •
John and
Elizabeth Dickens, parents of
Charles Dickens •
Fanny Dickens, elder sister of
Charles Dickens •
William Hepworth Dixon, historian and traveller. Also active in organizing London's
Great Exhibition of 1851 • The Druce family vault, one of whose members was (falsely) alleged to have been the
5th Duke of Portland. •
Herbert Benjamin Edwardes, Administrator and soldier, known as the "Hero of Multan" •
Joseph Edwards, Welsh sculptor •
Thomas Edwards, (Caerfallwch), Welsh author and lexicographer •
Ugo Ehiogu, footballer •
James Harington Evans, Baptist pastor of the John Street Chapel •
Benjamin Hawes, 19th-century British Whig politician, known in UK parliament as "Hawes the Soap-Boiler" •
Michael Faraday, chemist and physicist (with his wife Sarah), in the
Dissenters section •
Sir Charles Fellows,
archaeologist and
explorer, known for his numerous expeditions in what is present-day
Turkey. •
Charles Drury Edward Fortnum, art collector and benefactor of the
Ashmolean Museum •
Lucian Freud, painter, grandson of
Sigmund Freud, and elder brother of
Clement Freud •
John Galsworthy, author and
Nobel Prize winner (
cenotaph, he was cremated and his ashes scattered) •
Stephen Geary, architect of Highgate Cemetery •
John Gibbons, ironmaster and art patron •
Stella Gibbons, novelist, author of
Cold Comfort Farm •
Margaret Gillies, Scottish painter known for her miniature portraits, including of one of
Charles Dickens •
John William Griffith, architect of
Kensal Green Cemetery •
Henry Gray, anatomist and surgeon, author of ''
Gray's Anatomy''. •
Radclyffe Hall, author of
The Well of Loneliness and other novels •
William Hall, founder with
Edward Chapman of publishers
Chapman & Hall •
William Dobinson Halliburton, physiologist, noted for being one of the founders of the science of
biochemistry •
Philip Harben, English cook regarded as the first TV
celebrity chef •
Sir Charles Augustus Hartley, eminent British civil engineer, known as 'the father of the
Danube.' •
George Edwards Hering, landscape painter •
Edwin Hill, older brother of
Rowland Hill and inventor of the first
letter scale and a mechanical system to make envelopes •
Frank Holl, Royal portraitist •
Ian Holm, English actor •
James Holman, 19th-century adventurer known as "the Blind Traveller" •
Surgeon-General Sir Anthony Home,
Victoria Cross recipient from
Indian Mutiny •
Theodore Hope, British colonial administrator and writer •
Thomas Hopley, headmaster who beat one of his pupils to death •
William Hosking, first Professor of Architecture at
King's College London and architect of
Abney Park Cemetery •
Bob Hoskins, actor •
Georgiana Houghton, British artist and spiritualist
medium •
David Edward Hughes, FRS, 19th-century electrical engineer and inventor •
William Henry Hunt, popular and widely collected painter of watercolours, nicknamed 'Bird's Nest' Hunt •
Sir John Hutton, publisher of
Sporting Life and Chairman of the
London County Council •
Georges Jacobi, composer, conductor and musical director of the
Alhambra Theatre •
Lisa Jardine (ashes), historian •
Victor Kullberg, one of the greatest marine clockmakers •
Thomas Landseer, younger brother of Sir
Edwin Landseer (there is a cenotaph, Edwin was buried in
St Paul's Cathedral) •
Sir Peter Laurie, politician and
Lord Mayor of London •
Douglas Lapraik, shipowner and co-founder of
HSBC and the
Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels Group •
Henry Lee, surgeon,
pathologist and
syphilologist •
Oswald Lewis,
MP and younger son of
John Lewis, founder of the
chain of department stores •
Robert Liston, surgeon •
Alexander Litvinenko, Russian dissident, murdered by poisoning in London •
Edward Lloyd, influential newspaper publisher and founder of the
Daily Chronicle •
James Locke, a London draper credited with giving
Tweed its name •
William Lovett,
Chartist •
Samuel Lucas, editor of the
Morning Star, journalist and abolitionist •
Archibald Maclaine (British Army officer) • John Maple, founder of the furniture makers
Maple & Co. •
Hugh Mackay Matheson, industrialist and founder of
Matheson & Company and the
Rio Tinto Group •
Frederick Denison Maurice, English Anglican theologian, prolific author and one of the founders of
Christian socialism •
Michael Meacher, academic and
Labour Party politician •
George Michael, singer, songwriter, music producer and philanthropist; buried beside his mother and sister. •
Barbara Mills, (ashes) first female Director of Public Prosecutions •
Frederick Akbar Mahomed, internationally known British physician •
Jude Moraes, landscape gardener, writer and broadcaster •
Nicholas Mosley, novelist and biographer of his father,
Oswald Mosley •
Edward Moxhay, shoemaker, biscuit maker and property speculator, best known for his involvement in the landmark English land law case
Tulk v Moxhay • Elizabeth de Munck, mother of celebrated soprano,
Maria Caterina Rosalbina Caradori-Allan in grave with large carving of
pelican in piety •
General Sir Archibald James Murray, Chief of Staff to the
WW1 British Expeditionary Force •
Walter Neurath, Publisher and founder of
Thames and Hudson •
Henry Newton, painter and co-founder of
Winsor & Newton •
Samuel Noble, English engraver, and minister of the
New Church •
Feliks Nowosielski, Polish nobleman •
George Osbaldeston, known as Squire Osbaldeston, sportsman, gambler and
Member of Parliament •
Sherard Osborn, Royal Navy admiral and Arctic explorer •
Frederick William Pavy,
physician and
physiologist •
William Payne, actor, dancer and
pantomimist •
Thomas Ashburton Picken,
watercolourist,
engraver and
lithographer •
Frances Polidori Rossetti, mother of
Dante Gabriel,
Christina and William Michael Rossetti •
Samuel Phelps,
Shakespearian actor and manager of
Sadler's Wells Theatre •
Owen Roberts (educator), pioneer of technical education, great-grandfather of
Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon, former husband of
Princess Margaret. •
James Robinson, dentist, first person to carry out
general anaesthesia in Britain •
Sir John Richard Robinson, journalist, editor and manager of the
Daily News • Peter Robinson, founder of the
Peter Robinson department store at Oxford Circus, London •
Sir William Charles Ross, portrait and
portrait miniature painter •
Christina Rossetti, poet •
Gabriele Rossetti, Italian nationalist and scholar. Father of Christina and Dante Gabriel Rossetti •
William Michael Rossetti, co-founder of the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood •
Tom Sayers,
pugilist, his tomb is guarded by the stone image of his mastiff, Lion, who was chief mourner at his funeral •
Henry Young Darracott Scott, responsible for the design and construction of the
Royal Albert Hall •
Sir Peter Shepheard,
architect and
landscape architect, President of the
RIBA,
Architectural Association,
Landscape Institute and the
Royal Fine Art Commission •
Elizabeth Siddal, wife and model of artist/poet
Dante Gabriel Rossetti and model for the painting
Ophelia by
John Everett Millais •
Jean Simmons, actress •
William Simpson, war artist and correspondent •
Sir John Smale, Chief Justice of Hong Kong •
Alice Mary Smith, Victorian composer (under married name White) •
Tom Smith, inventor of the
Christmas cracker •
Charles Green Spencer, pioneer aviator and balloon manufacturer •
Alfred Stevens, sculptor, painter and designer •
Walter Fryer Stocks, prolific landscape painter •
Sir Henry Knight Storks, soldier, MP, and colonial administrator •
Anna Swanwick, author and
feminist who assisted in the founding of
Girton College, Cambridge, and
Somerville Hall, Oxford •
Alfred Swaine Taylor, toxicologist, forensic scientist, expert witness •
Frederick Tennyson, poet, older brother of
Alfred, Lord Tennyson •
Samuel Sanders Teulon, prolific
Gothic Revival architect •
Jeanette Threlfall,
hymnwriter and poet •
Charles Turner,
mezzotint engraver who collaborated with
J. M. W. Turner •
Andrew Ure, Scottish physician known for his
galvanism experimentation, founder of the
University of Strathclyde •
John Vandenhoff, leading Victorian actor •
Henry Vaughan, art collector who gave one of Britain's most popular paintings,
John Constable's
The Hay Wain to the
National Gallery •
Emilie Ashurst Venturi, writer, translator and women's rights campaigner •
Arthur Waley, translator and scholar of the Orient •
George Wallis, First Keeper of the Fine Art Collection at the
Victoria & Albert Museum •
Mary Warner, actress and theatre manager •
Augusta Webster, poet, dramatist, essayist, translator and advocate of
women's suffrage •
Henry White, lawyer and gifted
landscape photographer •
Brodie McGhie Willcox, founder of the
P&O Shipping Line •
Henry Willis, foremost
organ builder of the Victorian era •
Hugh Wilson, RAF test pilot •
George Wombwell, menagerie exhibitor •
Ellen Wood, author known as Mrs Henry Wood, there is also a plaque for her in
Worcester Cathedral •
Adam Worth, criminal mastermind. Possible inspiration for
Sherlock Holmes's nemesis,
Professor Moriarty; originally buried in a pauper's grave under the name Henry J. Raymond •
Sir William Henry Wyatt, long-serving chairman of the
Middlesex County Lunatic Asylum at Colney Hatch, Southgate •
Patrick Wymark, actor •
Arthur Wynn (ashes), British civil servant who ran a spy ring for the
KGB •
Joseph Warren Zambra, scientific instrument maker
East Side , East Cemetery Many famous or prominent people are buried on this side of Highgate cemetery; the most famous of which is perhaps that of
Karl Marx, whose tomb was the site of attempted bombings on 2 September 1965 and in 1970. The
tomb of Karl Marx is also a Grade I
listed building for reasons of historical importance. Fireman's corner is a monument erected in the East side by widows and orphans of members of the
London Fire Brigade in 1934. There are 97 firemen buried here. The monument is cared for by the Brigade's Welfare Section.
Notable East side interments •
David Abbott,
advertising executive and founder of
Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO who was widely regarded as one of the finest
copywriters of his generation. •
Douglas Adams (ashes), author of ''
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' and other novels •
Mehmet Aksoy, press officer for the Kurdish
YPG, killed by ISIS in 2017 •
Wilkie Bard, popular
vaudeville and
music hall entertainer and recording artist •
Farzad Bazoft, journalist, executed by
Saddam Hussein's regime •
Jeremy Beadle (ashes), writer, television presenter and curator of oddities • Adolf Beck, the
Adolph Beck case was a celebrated case of mistaken identity •
Hercules Bellville, American film producer •
William Betty, popular child actor of the early nineteenth century •
Emily Blatchley, pioneering
Protestant Christian missionary to
China •
Kate Booth, English Salvationist and evangelist. Oldest daughter of
William and
Catherine Booth. She was also known as
la Maréchale •
William Bradbury, printer and publisher and co-founder of
Bradbury and Evans •
Frederick Broome, colonial administrator of several British colonies. The Western Australian towns of
Broome and
Broomehill are named after him •
Neave Brown, American-British architect •
George Barclay Bruce, world renown railway engineer and president of the
Institution of Civil Engineers •
Sir Thomas Lauder Brunton, 1st Baronet, Scottish physician who is most closely associated with the treatment of
angina pectoris •
James Caird, Scottish agricultural writer and politician •
Patrick Caulfield, painter and printmaker known for his
pop art canvasses •
Douglas Cleverdon, radio producer and bookseller •
William Kingdon Clifford (with his wife
Lucy), mathematician and philosopher •
Lucy Lane Clifford, novelist and journalist, wife of
William Kingdon Clifford •
Yusuf Dadoo, South African anti-apartheid activist •
Lewis Foreman Day, influential artist in the
Arts and Crafts movement •
Sir Davison Dalziel, Bt, British newspaper owner and
Conservative Party politician. Massive mausoleum near the entrance. •
Elyse Dodgson, theatre producer •
Fritz Dupre,
iron and
manganese ore merchant, known as the "Manganese Ore King" •
Francis Elgar, naval architect •
George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans – the name on the grave is Mary Ann Cross), novelist, common-law wife of
George Henry Lewes and buried next to him •
Edwin Wilkins Field, lawyer who devoted much of his life to law reform •
Paul Foot, campaigning journalist and nephew of former
Labour Party leader
Michael Foot •
Lydia Folger Fowler, pioneering American physician and first American-born woman to earn a medical degree •
William Foyle, co-founder of
Foyles •
Philip French, Observer film critic •
William Friese-Greene, cinema pioneer and his son
Claude Friese-Greene •
Lou Gish, actress, daughter of Sheila Gish •
Sheila Gish, actress •
Philip Gould (ashes), British
political consultant, and former advertising
executive, closely linked to the
Labour Party •
Robert Grant VC, soldier and police constable •
Robert Edmond Grant, Professor of
Comparative Anatomy at
University College London who gave his name to the
Grant Museum of Zoology •
Charles Green, the United Kingdom's most famous balloonist of the 19th century •
Leon Griffiths, creator of
Minder •
Stuart Hall,
Jamaican-born British
Marxist sociologist,
cultural theorist, and
political activist •
Harrison Hayter, railway, harbour and dock engineer •
Mansoor Hekmat, Communist leader and founder of the
Worker-Communist Party of Iran and
Worker-Communist Party of Iraq •
Eric Hobsbawm (ashes), historian •
Austin Holyoake, printer, publisher, freethinker and brother of the more widely known
George Holyoake •
George Holyoake, Birmingham-born social reformer and founder of the
Cooperative Movement •
George Honey, popular Victorian actor and comedian •
Alan Howard, actor •
Leslie Hutchinson,
Cabaret star of the 1920s and 1930s •
Jabez Inwards, popular Victorian
temperance lecturer and
phrenologist •
Georges Jacobi, composer and conductor •
Bert Jansch, Scottish folk musician •
Claudia Jones, Trinidadian born
Communist and fighter for civil rights, founder of
The West Indian Gazette and the
Notting Hill Carnival •
George Goodwin Kilburne,
genre painter •
David Kirkaldy, Scottish engineer and pioneer in materials testing •
Anatoly Kuznetsov, Soviet writer and author best known for
Babi Yar: A Document in the Form of a Novel •
Arthur Leared, Irish physician •
Liza Lehmann, operatic soprano and composer, daughter of
Rudolf Lehmann •
Rudolf Lehmann, portrait artist and father of
Liza Lehmann •
Andrea Levy (ashes), novelist best known for the novels
Small Island and
The Long Song •
George Henry Lewes, English philosopher and critic, common law husband of
George Eliot and buried next to her. •
Roger Lloyd-Pack, British actor known for
Only Fools and Horses and
The Vicar of Dibley •
John Lobb, Society bootmaker •
Charles Lucy, British artist, whose most notable painting was
The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers •
Haldane MacFall, art critic, art historian, book illustrator and novelist •
Anna Mahler, sculptor and daughter of
Gustav Mahler and
Alma Schindler •
Chris Martin,
Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister •
James Martineau,
religious philosopher influential in the
history of Unitarianism •
Karl Marx, philosopher, historian, sociologist and economist (memorial after his reburial, with other family members) •
Frank Matcham, theatre architect •
Carl Mayer, Austro-German screenwriter of
The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari and
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans •
Thomas McKinnon Wood, Liberal politician and
Secretary of State for Scotland •
Malcolm McLaren,
punk impresario and original manager of the
Sex Pistols •
Alexander Michie, Scottish author, journalist, traveler, and businessman in China •
Ralph Miliband,
left wing political theorist, father of
David Miliband and
Ed Miliband •
Alan Milward, influential historian •
William Henry Monk, composer (of the music to
Abide with Me) •
Charles Morton,
music hall and
theatre manager who became known as the
Father of the Halls •
Sidney Nolan, Australian artist •
George Josiah Palmer, founder and editor of
Church Times •
Charles J. Phipps, theatre architect •
Tim Pigott-Smith, actor •
Dachine Rainer, poet and anarchist •
Corin Redgrave, actor and political activist •
Bruce Reynolds, criminal, mastermind of the
Great Train Robbery (1963) •
Ralph Richardson, actor •
George Richmond, painter and portraitist •
José Carlos Rodrigues, Brazilian journalist, financial expert, and philanthropist •
Ernestine Rose, suffragist, abolitionist and freethinker •
James Samuel Risien Russell, Guyanese-British physician, neurologist, professor of medicine, and professor of medical jurisprudence •
Raphael Samuel,
Marxist historian •
Anthony Shaffer, playwright, screenwriter and novelist •
Peter Shaffer, playwright and screenwriter •
Sir Eyre Massey Shaw, first Chief Officer of the
Metropolitan Fire Brigade •
Alan Sillitoe, English postmodern novelist, poet, and playwright •
James Smetham,
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood painter, engraver and follower of
Dante Gabriel Rossetti •
Sir Donald Alexander Smith, Canadian railway financier and diplomat •
Herbert Spencer,
evolutionary biologist, sociologist, and
laissez-faire economic philosopher •
Sir Leslie Stephen, critic, first editor of the
Dictionary of National Biography, father of
Virginia Woolf and
Vanessa Bell, members of the
Bloomsbury Group •
Julia Prinsep Stephen,
Pre-Raphaelite model and mother of
Virginia Woolf and
Vanessa Bell, members of the
Bloomsbury Group. •
William Heath Strange, physician and founder of the
Hampstead General Hospital, now the
Royal Free Hospital •
Lucien Stryk, American poet, teacher and translator of Zen poetry •
Thomas Tate, mathematician and scientific educator and writer • Sir
George Thalben-Ball, English organist, choirmaster and composer •
Bob Thoms, the greatest Victorian cricket umpire •
James Thomson, Victorian poet, best known for
The City of Dreadful Night •
Storm Thorgerson, graphic designer •
Malcolm Tierney, actor •
Feliks Topolski, Polish-born British expressionist painter •
Edward Truelove, radical publisher and freethinker •
Peter Ucko, influential English
archaeologist •
Varvara de Vesselitsky, pioneer social researcher •
Max Wall, comedian and entertainer •
Simon Ward, actor •
Peter Cathcart Wason, pioneering psychologist •
Sir Lawrence Weaver, architectural writer, editor of Country Life and organiser of the
British Empire Exhibition •
Opal Whiteley, American writer •
Colin St John Wilson, architect (most notably of the new
British Library in London), lecturer and author •
Joseph Wolf, natural history illustrator and pioneer in wildlife art •
Edward Richard Woodham, survivor of the
Charge of the Light Brigade •
Michael Young, Baron Young of Dartington, politician, social activist and consumer champion.
War graves The cemetery contains the graves of 318 Commonwealth service personnel maintained and registered by the
Commonwealth War Graves Commission, in both the East and West sides, 259 from the
First World War and 59 from the
Second. Those whose graves could not be marked by headstones are listed on a Screen Wall memorial erected near the
Cross of Sacrifice in the west side. ==In popular culture==