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The Friends have been working in Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park since 1990. Preserving, protecting and promoting the heritage and history of Tower Hamlets is one of our key focuses, and is our honour. Much of this work has been led by volunteers, and a number of projects have been the result of very effective collaborations with other local community partners.
In 2018, the Friends secured a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund for this research project. The objective was to research and document the stories of the 204 service personnel who lost their lives in World War I on its centenary. These individuals are recorded on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission War Memorial, located by the main entrance off Southern Grove.
The Commonwealth War Graves documents the names of the personnel and the images of each plaque are available at the War Memorial Page
In 2024, we worked with UCL History Students to deliver a number of workshops on the symbolism within the graves and monuments within the Cemetery Park. There are a number of intricate carvings on the gravestones within the cemetery. These reflect the fashions of the time, and the preferences and lives of those buried here.
The Victorians made great use of symbolism. Learn more about it on our Carvings & Symbolism page.
Thomas Barnardo founded schools, orphanages and homes to care for impoverished children in the East End around the 1870s. His campaigning raised public awareness of the poor conditions many children faced and by 1905 over 8,500 children were in Barnardo’s care.
In 2016, following a campaign led by a beneficiary of Barnardo’s care, the Friends unveiled a new monument in the Cemetery Park. The iconic ‘Cockney Sparra’ commemorates over 500 Barnardo’s children who were buried in unmarked graves between 1876 and 1924, as identified by our heritage volunteers. The monument is on the site of three of Barnardos’ biological children, who, at Barnardo’s request, had been placed in an unmarked plot too.