Herdman Memorial

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Egyptian-revivalist style stone memorial dating from 1871 to designs by architect John Lanyon built for Alexander Finley Herdman. Located to the central part of Belfast City Cemetery, along with the other listed structures in the cemetery; the entrance gates (HB26.25.001A); the gate lodge (HB26.25.001B) the fountains (HB26.25.001C) and other listed memorials (HB.25.26.001D & HB.25.26.001F - K).

The memorial faces north and is built in plain ashlar red sandstone. Engraved slate plaques set within square-headed arches and divided by a single granite column with Corinthian sandstone capital. Carved upside down torches to sandstone surround. Tapering towards the top, the name ‘Herdman’ is engraved over the plaques; projecting coved coping stone bearing the templar cross.

The plot is enclosed by stone walling having square plan piers with carved detail and caps with corner crenellations.

Historical information

In the course of the nineteenth century Belfast expanded at a phenomenal rate. As Belfast’s population rose, there was increasing pressure on its existing burial grounds, exacerbated by outbreaks of cholera and the Great Famine. Both Shankill graveyard and Friar’s Bush graveyard were becoming overcrowded, the while the New Burying Ground, Clifton Street, was also filling up. The opening of a new Presbyterian cemetery at Balmoral only partly alleviated the situation.

Responding to this situation, in the autumn of 1865 Belfast Corporation decided to accept Thomas Sinclair’s offer of 101 acres on the Falls Road for municipal purposes. The purchase of the site was completed in December of that year for £12,000 with an annual ground rent of £73 5s. 4d. Of this site, 45 acres would be used as a cemetery, with most of the remainder being given over to what would become Falls Park. On 25 January 1867 the Cemetery Committee of Belfast Corporation awarded the contract to design the new cemetery to William Gay of Bradford.

At an advanced stage in the laying out of the cemetery there arose a dispute between Dr Patrick Dorrian, Catholic bishop of Down and Connor, over the ground reserved for the burial of Catholics. No satisfactory settlement could be reached with regard to the Catholic portion of the Corporation’s new cemetery and as a result a new Catholic cemetery – Milltown – was opened a short distance away on the opposite side of the Falls Road in November 1869. ‘The Belfast Cemetery’, as the name had been agreed on 29 September 1868, opened on 1 August 1869, with the first burials taking place there three days later.

One of the most impressive memorials in Belfast City Cemetery – and for that matter anywhere in Ireland – is the Herdman monument. On 11 July 1870 the Cemetery Committee, which had reserved the right to approve the form of all memorials, accepted the plan for Alexander Finlay Herdman’s monument. A fortnight later the Committee agreed that the cost of the substantial foundations of the monument, the superstructure of which would stand 12½ feet in height, would be £17 12s. 9d. The following month, however, William Gay, the man who had laid out the cemetery grounds, expressed his concern that the monument would be improperly positioned if erected as Herdman intended. This led the Committee to direct Herdman to have the monument constructed at the head of his grave plot. The matter dragged on and the following April the Committee was still insisting that permission to built the monument would only be granted if it was erected in line with the other memorials and fronting the path. The city’s solicitor was instructed to speak to the architect John Lanyon who in turn agreed to speak to Herdman. The issue was finally resolved in July 1871. The Committee agreed to Lanyon’s proposal that monument should be supported on the back and sides by cemented brick walls 1½ foot in depth and on the front by two railway bars used as girders.

Born in 1840, Alexander Finlay Herdman was the son of John Herdman and Elizabeth Finlay. He became a major figure in Belfast’s commercial life and was actively involved in the Smithfield Spinning Company Ltd that had been founded by his father. He contributed to public life in Belfast and was elected a town councillor for Smithfield in 1866. He was also an active member of Fisherwick Place Presbyterian Church. Due he ill-health he was forced to withdraw from many of his commitments and spent some time in France in the hope that it would improve his physical condition. However, he died at his home, 6 College Square North, on 13 March 1875, aged 34. His estate was valued at just under £7,000.

Herdman’s wife, Selina Frances, died on 4 May 1870 and it was presumably her passing which prompted him to seek the construction of the monument. Larmour (p. 40) calls the monument ‘a rare piece of Egyptian Revivalism in Belfast’. Curl (p. 180) also draws attention to it, commenting that it is ‘in the form of a pylon-tower with a single column in the centre between the “antae”. The name Gemmell at the base of the monument probably refers to D. & J. Gemmell, monumental sculptors based at Wellington Place in Belfast.

References

Public Record Office of Northern Ireland
Belfast Corporation records: Minute Book of the [City] Cemetery Committee, 1867-87 – LA/7/11/AB/2

Northern Ireland Environment Agency
First Survey Record – HB/26/25/001
HB Records – HB/26/25/001E

Ulster Historical Foundation
Card index of gravestone inscriptions in Belfast City Cemetery
Birth, marriage and death databases

Published sources
Belfast Newsletter, 15 March 1875
Paul Larmour, Belfast: an illustrated architectural guide (Belfast, 1987)
James Stevens Curl, The Egyptian Revival: Ancient Egypt as the Inspiration for Design Motifs in the West (Abingdon, Oxford, 2005)
Tom Hartley, Written in Stone: The History of Belfast City Cemetery (Belfast, 2006)

Online sources
Natural Stone Database: www.stonedatabase.com
Dictionary of Irish Architects: www.dia.ie

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
T. Historic Importance
U. Historic Associations
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance
Z. Rarity
V. Authorship
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

An unusual, and very well executed, Egyptian-revivalist style stone memorial dating from 1871; designed by architect John Lanyon and built for Alexander Finley Herdman. The memorial is located to the central part of Belfast City Cemetery. It has group value with the other listed structures in the cemetery; the entrance gates (HB26.25.001A); the gate lodge (HB26.25.001B) the fountains (HB26.25.001C) and other listed memorials (HB.25.26.001D & HB.25.26.001F - K).