Looking for Robert and Sarah Paton in Southern Cemetery

The Paton family plot

Now I have been thinking a lot about Southern Cemetery.

It has much to offer and on a recent visit I came across a chap who at least once a month spent time just wandering the plots and reading the headstone.

It was as he said “a place to learn about people and in the process reflect on what is really important” which was pretty much why I was there.

And because it is always interesting to have company I had roped along David Harrop who manages an excellent exhibition of memorabilia from the two World Wars in the Remembrance Hall.*

I was looking for the graves of Clara Atkinson and James Arthur Parks and David was keen to show me that of Robert Alexander Paton.

Mr Paton

In the normal course of events I doubt that I would ever have come across his grave, but David had recently acquired a small book which was part of the burial service for Mr Paton.

It is pocket size, carried the words “In Memoriam” with a cross on the blue padded cover and was “The Order for the Burial of Dead” containing directions for the clergy, and the hymns and psalms to be used in the service.

He was just 46 and left a wife and two daughters aged just eight and three.

The year before he died he listed his occupation as a surgeon and the family lived at 771 Rochdale Road in an eleven roomed property close to Manchester General Cemetery with views across to Queens Park.

From The Order of the Burial of the Dead

Now I have yet to find out much about him.  I know that on his death he left £6,463 and that when his wife died in 1931 she had £10,490 worth of effects.

By then she and her daughters were living in a flat in Birkdale, Southport.

I would like to know more especially given that neither of her daughters married but by 1931 the trail goes a little cold.

Robert and Sarah

But it is possible to find Mr and Mrs Paton’s grave.  They can be found on the City Council’s online burial records which will give you the grave number with which it is possible to locate the plot using a map available from the cemetery offices.***

Now one last tip is that the plot number along with the letter designating the plot area is carved on the foot of the headstone.

They are not always easy to read and some times have been covered up by grass but it will be there.

All I would say is please be careful where you stand.  Many of the graves are now no longer visited but some are and even if not I think we owe those buried a degree of respect.

Map of the cemetery

The Paton's can be found at  plot number A Consecrated 888.


Pictures; the headstone of Alexander & Sarah Paton from the collection of Andrew Simpson, extracts from “The Order for the Burial of Dead” of Mr Paton, courtesy of David Harrop, and map of the cemetery courtesy of Manchester City Council

*Remembering the Great War ......... the exhibition at Southern Cemetery, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/remembering-great-war-exhibition-at.html

** the City Council’s online burial records, http://www.burialrecords.manchester.gov.uk/