Query about non-conformist burial registration

[ladynicotine]

Hi

I'm not sure if this is the right board to post this on but here goes.  I've found a record that indicates a child was buried in the Victoria Park Cemetery, Hackney in 1872.  The address given is Hard Street, Walworth.  This seems to be the correct registration for a child in my family tree who was born in 1871, is living in Hard Street Walworth with her family in the 1871 census, and died at about a year old.  However, I've found no other records for anyone in that family to indicate they were non-conformists. 

I haven't found a christening record for the child in question, but those siblings I've found records for seem to have been registered in the Church of England, as were her parents.  Her parents marriage was registered as Church of England.

Has anyone come across any instances like this where a single burial record relates to non-conformism, or is it (as I suspect) just one of those really weird co-incidences that come up sometimes?

Thanks

Ladynicotine

[Guy Etchells]

What makes you think the child was non-conformist? The Victoria Park Cemetery Company Ltd became bankrupt in 1853 and the cemetery was closed in 1876, it is very possible that no other members of the family died between 1872 and 1876 when the cemetery was closed.

Cheers
Guy

PS I should add the cemetery was one of many private cemeteries opened due to the church graveyards being unable to accept any more dead, that does not mean the grave was not consecrated but simply it would be consecrated if and when required.

[Chris Doran]

Just for the record, Victoria Park Cemetery is now a public park called Meath Gardens. I don't think many gravestones remain.

[ladynicotine]

Hi Guy

I've no proof at all the child was a non-conformist.  As I said, all the other records I can find for the family indicate they belonged to the Church of England.  I just have this one record that's come up which seems to match this child in every other way - and I wondered if Non-Conformists graveyards ever accepted members of other religions for burial (in which case the child might be the one I'm looking for) or if it is more likely to be one of those cases where all the information seems to match, but it's not the right person!

Lady Nicotine

[Mean_genie]

If the record that you found was on Ancestry/theGenealogist/Findmypast (Ref RG 8/...) it is part of the collection of Nonconformist AND Non-parochial records. The full title is a bit of a mouthful, so the collection is often referred to simply as 'Nonconformist'. Understandable, but incorrect. The non-parochial records even include some Anglican registers. As Guy pointed out, Victoria Park was run by a cemetery company, one of several in the London area, and was not associated with any particular religious denomination.
 

[Chris Doran]

Thanks for that explanation Mean_genie. I've been puzzling over where the Nonconformist presumption was coming from. Whilst I'm not familiar with the arrangements at Victoria Park, if it was like most cemeteries, it would have had Consecrated graves for C of E burials and Unconsecrated (aka General) for everybody else (Nonconformist, Roman Catholic, Jewish, ...) The registers may have something like "Cons" or "Gen" against the plot numbers. The importance of this is not always appreciated by transcribers, creating problems where Sections X-cons and X-gen are different areas of a cemetery.

[ladynicotine]

Hi Mean_genie

Thanks for this - the record I found was an Ancestry one, so it's looking like the child is the one I'm looking for, but almost certainly not as a Non-Conformist burial.  I'll go back & have a closer look at the record to see if I can see any indication that it was consecrated - as per Chris's suggestion.