history
BRINGING WITHAM’S CEMETERY BACK TO LIFE
You may know this space as Witham’s Cemetery, Sandpits Cemetery, or perhaps even the Officers’ Cemetery. For the past 4 years, the Gibraltar Heritage Trust and a core group of volunteers have been diligently working on a project to restore and open the site to the public. Now well over the halfway mark, we speak to project leader Keith Farrell to see how they’re getting on.
BY SOPHIE CLIFTON-TUCKER HISTORY
P
rimarily for the officers of the fortress and their families, Witham’s Cemetery houses a number of famous figures. Although there are burials dating from the late 18th century and the early 20th century, the majority of the burials here took place in the 19th century. It has been inactive as a burial site since then, laying abandoned and overgrown.
no proper surgery or anaesthetic. There were also only very basic obstetric services; many women died during childbirth, and children often died during early infancy. It becomes quite heart wrenching to see the number of children buried here,” project
leader Keith Farrell admits. Amongst the officers buried at Witham’s Cemetery are a few catholic priests, who all had issues with the catholic establishment, either with the church or the papacy, or with the local elders
Nestled between Knight's Court and St John's Court, the site is home to over 200 graves, around 20% of which belong to children, many of whom died of epidemics such as the 1828 yellow fever epidemic. “You’ve also got to bear in mind it was a time where there was 28
GIBRALTAR MAGAZINE JULY 2020
