Willesden Jewish Cemetery

The Willesden United Synagogue Cemetery, usually known as Willesden Jewish Cemetery, is a cemetery for Jews in Beaconsfield Road, Willesden in the London Borough of Brent. It opened in 1873 on a 20-acre (0.08 km²) site. In 2015 it was awarded a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to restore some key feature of the cemetery and to create a visitor centre, a permanent exhibition and a web-based education project.^[1]

Notable burials

Some of the notable persons interred here include:

Asher Asher (1837–1889), first Scottish Jew to enter the medical profession. In London, he was secretary of its Great Synagogue, and then the first secretary of the United Synagogue.
Barney Barnato (1852–1897), financier
Edgar Israel Cohen (1853-1933) businessman
Rosalind Franklin (1920–1958), co-discoverer of the structure of DNA
Mark Gertler (1891–1939), painter
Sir Charles Solomon Henry, 1st Baronet (1860–1919), Australian expatriate businessman and Member of the British Parliament
Barnett Janner (1892–1982), politician
Lord Greville Janner (1928–2015), politician
Dudley Joel (1904–1941), businessman, politician, World War II naval officer
Jim Joel (1895–1992), businessman, racehorse owner
Jane Marian Joseph (1894–1929), composer and music teacher
Sir Emmanuel Kaye (1914–1999), industrialist and philanthropist; and his wife, Lady (Elizabeth) Kaye (1925–2012)
Sir Joseph Lyons, founder of J. Lyons and Co.^[2]
Alfred Charles de Rothschild (1842–1918), Governor of the Bank of England
Anthony Nathan de Rothschild (1810–1876)
Charles Rothschild (1877–1923)
Charlotte von Rothschild (1819–1884)
Hannah Primrose (née Rothschild), Countess of Rosebery (1851–1890)
James A. de Rothschild (1878–1957)
Leopold de Rothschild (1845–1917)
Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild (1868–1937)
Lionel de Rothschild (1808–1879)
Lionel Nathan de Rothschild (1882–1942)
Mayer Amschel de Rothschild (1818–1874)
Sir Matthew Nathan (1862–1939), Governor of Hong Kong
Nathan Mayer Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild (1840–1915), banker, politician
Marcus Samuel (1853–1927), 1st Viscount Bearsted, banker and a founder of Shell Oil Co.
Sir Albert Sassoon
Sir Edward Sassoon, 2nd Baronet, of Kensington Gore
Simeon Solomon (1840–1905), painter
Conchita Supervía (1895–1936), Spanish mezzo-soprano.
Sir Julius Vogel (1835–1899), Prime Minister of New Zealand
Giulia Warwick (1857–1904), opera singer
Michael Winner (1935-2013), film director, restaurant critic

War graves and memorial

There are in the cemetery 33 Commonwealth service war graves from World War I, six of whom form a small group by the Assembly Hall, and 77 from World War II, 22 of them grouped in a war graves plot (Dudley Joel being one of those from the latter war.) In place of a Cross of Sacrifice, a memorial in the form of an obelisk was placed by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission opposite the World War II war graves plot, the first national Jewish war memorial in the UK.^[3]

The grave of the opera diva Conchita Supervia is not at this cemetery, but at the neighbouring Liberal Jewish Cemetery in Pound Lane, Willesden. Her tombstone was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, the world-famous architect.