PRINCES ROAD SYNAGOGUE
Home to Liverpool Old Hebrew Congregation since 1874
BROADGREEN
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Broadgreen Cemetery on Thomas Drive is the congregation’s fourth cemetery, the others being located at Upper Frederick Street, Oakes Street and Deane Road.
In 1904 land was purchased. An ohel (prayer hall, pictured below) was built as well as a house for the groundsman and his family.
Whilst Broadgreen is not as historical in terms of the men and women buried there, who laid the foundations for the Jewish Community in the early part of the nineteenth century, it can lay claim to be the resting place of many prominent people of the community, who not only maintained but contributed massively to the further development and status of our city.
As a point of historical interest, at the top right side of the cemetery is a small site containing the remains interred in the congregation’s first two cemeteries. These graves date back to the 1780s.
Here lie the remains of some of the very early settlers to Liverpool’s Jewish Community. The likelihood given on researched historical information, going back to early 1770’s if not earlier.
Records tell us that Jews were active in Liverpool in the early 1750s. The first Synagogue was in Cumberland Street, it is believed to have had a burial ground, but no records or physical remains exist.
The earliest burial ground for which any information exists was in Upper Frederick Street (pictured left), the adjoining house was used as The Liverpool Hebrew Congregation’s Synagogue between 1789 and 1807.
In due course, we hope to have enough information to give a substantial picture of the people buried here, their ages, where they came from, and their connection to the families of later years who established themselves and were in turn contributors to the success and wellbeing of this much-loved city of Liverpool.
Also, one must not forget those men of the congregation who made the ultimate sacrifice in two world wars who are buried in the cemetery.
Genealogical research has been carried out for all these men, so more information about their lives, their military service and the location of their graves within the cemetery, will soon be available at the cemetery site itself.
On the right side of the Ohel (Prayer House) at Broadgreen cemetery is a wooden Star of David which is one of the original grave markers which marked the grave of an unknown Jewish soldier who died on the Western Front during the First World War, prior to the grave being permanently marked by a stone headstone. These replacements of Stars of David and Crosses started to take place after the war, and in some cases did not take place until the 1930s.
The Broadgreen example being dedicated to an unknown soldier was probably donated to the congregation as a symbolic memorial some time around 1930.
This may be significant in that (to the author’s knowledge) it is the only example of a Star of David memorial to survive. jrtrigg@liv.ac.uk
In 2014, a new memorial garden to those who fell in the two World Wars was created and intalled at Broadgreen. For more information, please click here.
A new groundsman Mike Bell has been engaged and it is his responsibility along with the Burial Board chairman and his deputy to see that the cemetery is maintained to the high standard for which it is known.
Any enquiries should be made to the synagogue office.
Alaster Burman
