Carson Memorial, Belfast City Cemetery, Falls Road, Belfast, County Antrim, BT12 6DE

Carson Memorial, Belfast City Cemetery

Art Nouveau style stone memorial dating from circa 1905, commemorating Alan Campbell Carson and located in the central part of Belfast City Cemetery on the Falls Road. The memorial is one of very few funerary monuments of this style and is exceptionally rare in Northern Ireland.

The memorial comprises a carved limestone plaque facing west, set within an elaborately carved surround featuring foliage, roots and stems. A cartouche sits on top, flanked by square plan pilasters with foliage detail. The rectangular plan base carries a carved inscription. The plot is surrounded by square section coping stones, with two square plan pilasters featuring curved coping stones marking the boundaries.

The memorial commemorates Alan Campbell Carson, who died in 1905 aged 11, as well as his parents James Campbell Carson, who died in 1929 aged 57, and Annie Carson, who died in 1973 aged 103. Alan Campbell Carson was born on 14 March 1894 at 17 Myrtlegrove Terrace, Cliftonville, Belfast. His father James Campbell Carson was an optician, born in Lanark, Scotland, while his mother Annie (née Goode) was a native of Sale, England. The family belonged to the Church of Ireland and later moved to the Malone Road. James Campbell Carson's estate at death was valued at £10,842.

Belfast City Cemetery was established following rapid population growth in the nineteenth century and overcrowding of existing burial grounds including Shankill graveyard, Friar's Bush graveyard and the New Burying Ground on Clifton Street. In autumn 1865 Belfast Corporation accepted an offer of 101 acres on the Falls Road from Thomas Sinclair. The purchase was completed in December 1865 for £12,000 with an annual ground rent of £73 5s. 4d. Of this site, 45 acres were designated as cemetery, with the remainder forming what became Falls Park. The Cemetery Committee awarded the design contract to William Gay of Bradford on 25 January 1867. The cemetery opened on 1 August 1869, with first burials taking place three days later. A dispute with Catholic bishop Dr Patrick Dorrian over ground reserved for Catholic burials led to the opening of a separate Catholic cemetery at Milltown, opposite on the Falls Road, in November 1869.

The Art Nouveau style emerged in the early twentieth century as a distinctive decorative manner originating in Belgium. Contemporary examples in Belfast include the former Crymble's music shop in Wellington Place (1903) by W. J. W. Roome and Castle Buildings in Castle Place by Blackwood and Jury. The Carson Memorial exemplifies this artistic movement in funerary architecture, a context in which Art Nouveau is exceptionally rare.

The memorial has group value with other listed structures in Belfast City Cemetery: the entrance gates, the gate lodge, the fountains, the Vaults and other listed memorials.