About the Friends
Who are the Friends?
The Committee of the Friends, which launched the organisation to the public on Wednesday 22nd June 2005, is made up of people from a wide range of backgrounds who all have an interest in conserving and developing the Glasgow Necropolis. The members have interests in family history research, cemetery history, tourism and hospitality, economic development, architecture and sculpture, architectural conservation and ecology. They have links to the Merchants' House, the Trades House, the Glasgow Natural History Society, Glasgow and West of Scotland Family History Society, Glasgow University and the local community. One is descended from a number of the people buried in the Necropolis. The Friends has the full support of Glasgow City Council, which owns the Necropolis.
What will the Friends do?
Now that the Friends is publicly established, all the members of the organisation will decide the activities and priorities. The provisional schedule of possible activities, which was drawn up by the original steering group, is divided into short-, medium- and long-term actions. The short-term activities include fund-raising, publicity and working with Glasgow City Council to agree the role of the Friends in conserving and promoting the Necropolis. In general terms, the Friends will work to promote the Necropolis as a cultural resource for the people of Glasgow and as an attractive location for visitors.
Does the Necropolis need Friends?
The Necropolis has suffered over the years from under-investment, natural erosion and decay, and vandalism. It needs people to champion its cause, to encourage investment and tourism, to publicise its importance to the history and culture of Glasgow, and to provide materials that help locals and visitors alike to understand the meaning of the site and its structures. Everyone who joins the Friends will be helping to restore a sense of pride in the Necropolis, and to bring back to life one of Glasgow's most intriguing landscapes.
What's so important about the Necropolis?
The Necropolis embodies Glasgow at the height of its power as the Second City of the British Empire. The engineers, iron founders, inventors, ship builders, locomotive makers, scientists, factory owners, business people and overseas agents of Victorian Glasgow are buried here. Their monuments were designed by the architects and sculptors who built the city, such as Alexander ‘Greek' Thomson and Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The Necropolis was the first ornamental or garden cemetery in Scotland, and among the first in Britain. Its landscape represents a new way of commemorating the dead, which was derived from the famous Père Lachaise in Paris. However, the Necropolis is also home to many thousands of ordinary Glaswegians, who were buried without headstones.
Why should I join the Friends?
The Friends represents people with a wide range of interests in the Necropolis, from family members who are buried there to the plants, animals and birds that live there now. If you have an interest in the history of Glasgow, or in learning how our ancestors lived and what they believed about death and the hereafter, or in any other aspect of the Necropolis mentioned here, you should consider joining. Your membership will help to ensure that the city's great cultural treasure is not allowed to deteriorate any further, but instead be conserved and developed into an attraction for locals and visitors that helps to explain Glasgow's history and character.