West Ham Jewish Cemetery

In 1857, with its Brady Street Cemetery full almost to overflowing, the congregation of the New Synagogue joined with that of the Great Synagogue, becoming the United Synagogue, to buy land for a new cemetery. A plot of just over 2 hectares was purchased from the Quaker banker and local landowner Samuel Gurney who had previously sold land adjacent to this to the West Ham Burial Board for its new West Ham Cemetery. The cemetery was later extended to its present size and is laid out simply, with tombs surrounded by gravel, straight paths and little vegetation. The original prayer hall was demolished and a new one was built in 1874. In 1960 the remains from a small Jewish Cemetery in Hoxton Street were reinterred in the north of the cemetery.

The most prominent monument in the burial ground is the magnificent circular mausoleum designed by Sir Matthew Digby Wyatt for Evelina de Rothschild who died in childbirth in 1866. Sir Matthew, the architect of the India Office in Whitehall, was commissioned by her husband, Ferdinand de Rothschild, who was later himself buried here in 1898. The design of the mausoleum reflects de Rothschild's interest in Renaissance art, of which he was a collector. He later had a mansion built resembling a French chateau. He endowed the Evelina Hospital for Children in Southwark, which opened in 1869, and for the last 14 years of his life was MP for Aylesbury. Others buried here include David Salomons (d.1873) and Sir Benjamin Phillips (d.1889), both of whom had held the office of Lord Mayor of London, Salomons being the first Jewish Lord Mayor and also Liberal MP for Greenwich. Also buried here is James Samuel (d.1866), founder of the firm of monumental masons, J Samuel and Son, responsible for many fine monuments in Jewish cemeteries across London.