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1870 - Sheffield railway
station opens
This meant that there was a direct connection to St Pancras,
which opened two years earlier. An objector to the St Pancras
development was John Fowler, the son of another John Fowler,
who is buried in this cemetery.
Sheffield Railway Station
John Fowler junior, the Metropolitan Railway's engineer,
attacked the proposal which cut through St Pancras graveyard.
In fact the burial ground was cleared away but the process
was distasteful for workers. The ground was fetid and saturated
with decomposing matter, skeleton parts were scattered and
the inhabitants of coffins could be seen.
The writer Thomas Hardy was moved to write a poem "The
Levelled Churchyard" which included the verse:
We late-lamented resting here,
Are mixed to human jam,
And each exclaims in fear
"I know not which I am"!
Thomas Hardy
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