Forgotten grave of 'Little Incurables' unearthed

A long-lost gravestone dedicated to 15 children has been unearthed at Bradford's Undercliffe Cemetery.

The children had all lived at the Home for Little Incurables run by Barnardo's in Manningham and are believed to have died in the late 18th and early 19th Century from tuberculosis.

The gravestone was uncovered as part of a project by the Undercliffe Cemetery Charity to make the site, and the stories of those buried there, more accessible.

Deborah Buxton, from Barnardo's, described it as a "remarkable" discovery and said plans were in place to restore the grave.

She said repairing the memorial was "bringing the children to life".

"It's giving them the dignity, with the care and love from the cemetery, to identify those children," she said.

The 13 boys and two girls children buried in the plot, which was bought by Irish philanthropist Doctor Thomas John Barnardo, were aged between three and 18-years-old.

All 15 had lived at the Home for Little Incurables in Parkfield Road, which was set up to care for children who were terminally ill and whose parents were unable to care for them.

Tim Hardy, from the Undercliffe Cemetery Charity, said: "The term "Little Incurables" says it all. The children who were in this home were expected to die.

"We think most of the children here died from Tuberculosis, otherwise known as the White Death."

Over the past five years, the charity has painstakingly compiled a database of the cemetery's 124,500 burials, using the information they have collected to locate the sunken gravestone along with in-depth research by Christine Eddison.

Many of the 23,000 graves in the cemetery are overgrown and in a state of disrepair and the charity is restoring them with the help of the newly digitized records.

Gravedigger and restorer Graham Swain said: "The children have been put into the grave, they haven't been in coffins, and eventually the bodies disappear and the marker stone sinks down into the ground.

"These people never really lived a life, so we're bringing their memory back to life.

"We're going to lift this marker stone back out and actually use the same stone and keep it as basic as we can.

"Each person will have a little plaque, with their name on, and also a little vase for anybody who wants to come along and put a little flower in it."

The official unveiling of the memorial is due to take place in June.

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