One of the aims of the Friends of Loxley Cemetery is to collate and record information of historical interest; old cemeteries are sources of family history information, and a research resource for future generations.
Another aim is to assist families to find the graves of their loved ones, we run a Burial Research Service for this purpose. This is free to members and we ask a small fee from non-members.
Burial research: as we uncover the graves and headstones, our team is researching the lives of some of the departed and their families. The Grave Stories section has photographs and documents from this work.
Important Graves in Loxley Cemetery
Many of the graves are of exceptional interest:
Great Sheffield Flood of 1864
At least 22 victims of the Great Sheffield Flood of 1864 are buried at Loxley, including several families:
From Malin Bridge
• 7 members of the Armitage family
• 3 members of the Hudson family
• 4 members of the Bates family
• 4 members of the Chapman family of Little Matlock
War Commission Graves
Loxley Cemetery also holds a number of graves from the War Graves Commission:
3 from WWI and 11 from WWII, including that of an Air Raid Warden killed in the Sheffield Blitz.
Titanic Connection
Whilst Loxley is about as far away from the sea as one can get in England, there is a connection to the world’s most famous sea tragedy: the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. Chief Officer Henry Tingle Wilde of RMS Titanic was christened at Loxley Church on 24 October 1872. His mother, Elizabeth Tingle, was a Loxley lass and his father, Henry Wilde, was from Ecclesfield. Both his parents are buried at Loxley Cemetery.
Libraries Sheffield has recently (April 2021) published an article about Henry Tingle: Titanic Chief Officer's Links to Loxley Chapel.
Sinking of the Lusitania
The RMS Lusitania was a UK-registered ocean liner that was torpedoed by a German Navy U-boat during the First World War on 7 May 1915, off the coast of Ireland, killing 1,195 people including 128 Americans. The disaster set off a chain of events that eventually led to the United States entering World War I. Frederick Skelton, son of Frederick and Sarah Skelton, was a passenger aboard the ship, and did not survive. The Skelton family grave is in Loxley Cemetery, and Frederick is memorialised there.