The Cemetery of the Resettlement

THERE is some general misconception in the books as to the first burial place acquired by the Jews of the Resettlement?what ground was then acquired and what interest in it.

One story is that Cromwell granted the Jews a lease of a burial ground at Mile End for 999 years.2 This story is purely apocryphal. More recently it is said by most writers that a lease was then obtained of the Old Burial Ground, Mile End. This also is incorrect. I have called the present account ‘The Cemetery of the Resettlement5 by way of tribute to Mr. Wilfred Samuel’s ‘The First Synagogue of the Resettlement’,3 to which it is to some extent complementary.

The present account is mainly based on the original documents in the archives at Bevis Marks. They consist chiefly of title-deeds, wills and agreements in English, certified copies of Latin entries in the Court Rolls of the

Written by

Master A. S. Diamond

Published in

Volume 19

1955

Other articles within the volume

• Starrs of Aaron of York in the Dean and Chapter Muniments of Durham
• The Iconography of Menasseh Ben Israel, ii, 191-198
• The Cemetery of the Resettlement
• The Origins of Scottish Jewry
• The West Metropolitan Jewish School 1845-1897
• The Origins of the Jews’ Free School
• Isaac Leonini Azulay
• Sussex Hall—The First Anglo-Jewish Venture in Popular Education
• Sephardi Jews and the early years of The Bank of England
• Portrait of Anglo-Jewry 1656-1836
• The Middle Period of Anglo-Jewish History (1290-1655) Reconsidered
• Preface