Ferguson Memorial, Balmoral Cemetery, Stockman's Lane, Belfast, BT9 7JA

The Ferguson Memorial is a gabled neo-Gothic style sandstone memorial erected in 1865 to designs by architect William J. Barre. It stands within Balmoral Cemetery on Stockman's Lane in Belfast.

The monument is architecturally distinguished by a trefoil sandstone arch supported on bracketed Corinthian limestone columns, with an inset carved marble plaque. The gable ends feature foliated mouldings. The memorial is elaborately carved throughout. The plot faces west and is located in the south-west part of Balmoral Cemetery, which is entered at its south-west corner by four square painted sandstone piers linked by dwarf painted sandstone walling, topped by iron railings and supporting iron gates. An un-coursed rock-faced basalt wall forms the southern boundary.

The memorial commemorates Professor John Creery Ferguson, a major figure in Irish medical history. Born in 1802 in Tandragee, County Armagh, the son of Dr Thomas Ferguson and Elizabeth Creery, Ferguson was educated at the Feinaiglian Institution, Trinity College Dublin, and Edinburgh University. In November 1827, at the Dublin General Dispensary, he became the first person in either Britain or Ireland to hear the human foetal heart using a stethoscope, a newly introduced instrument of which he became a prominent advocate. The stethoscope subsequently became standard equipment at the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin through his advocacy. He received his licence in 1827 and was admitted a Fellow of the College of Physicians in Ireland in 1829. In 1837 he was appointed the first Professor of Medicine at the School of Medicine of the Apothecaries' Hall. He became King's Professor of the Practice of Medicine in the School of Physic at Trinity College in 1846, and in 1849 was appointed the first Professor of Medicine at Queen's College (now University), Belfast. While in Belfast he served as attending physician at the Belfast General Hospital and president of the Ulster Medical Society. He was married first to Jane Clarke from Dublin, then to his cousin Miss Tate, and had ten surviving children from eleven born. He died in Belfast on 24 June 1865 and was buried in Balmoral Cemetery on 28 June. The monument was erected by his former colleagues and is noted for recording his various medical positions.

Balmoral Cemetery was opened in 1855 to relieve overcrowding in Belfast's existing graveyards, a problem exacerbated by the city's rapid expansion, cholera epidemics, and the Great Famine. The cemetery was established after Reverends Henry Cooke and Joseph Mackenzie were obstructed while conducting a funeral by a Church of Ireland rector. In response, Presbyterians determined to open their own cemetery. Mackenzie secured the site and a board of trustees was appointed with Cooke among them. The cemetery was originally also known as the Belfast Cemetery or the Malone Cemetery. It was taken over by Belfast Corporation in 1953. The Ferguson Memorial has significant group value within the cemetery, standing alongside the Cooke memorial and the McKee memorial, making a positive contribution to the setting.