From Paper to Stone: Liverpool Stonemasons’ Illustrations, their Memorials, and the National and Transatlantic Trade in Cemetery Monuments

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Investigating Cultural Aspects of Historic Mortuary Archaeology: Perspectives from Europe and North America", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

During research into Liverpool’s nineteenth-century cemeteries, archives held by Liverpool City Council relating to Toxteth Park Cemetery (established in 1856) were catalogued, resulting in the discovery of historically significant documents. Alongside early plans of the cemetery, a large collection of monument illustrations was found, drawn in the nineteenth-century by the cemetery’s resident masons, George Muir and Andrew Laidlaw. These consist of over 240 illustrated papers, hitherto forgotten for over a century. Exploring these, in conjunction with the existing cemetery memorials, gives insight into the process of memorial manufacturing, costs of commemoration, consumer choice, and how these translated from paper to the cemetery. The documents also provide a window into the well-established transatlantic trade in Scottish and North American granite, in which Liverpool and its cemeteries played an important role.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Investigating Cultural Aspects of Historic Mortuary Archaeology: Perspectives from Europe and North America   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow