Where were BC Penitentiary inmates buried before 1912 and after 1968?
Prior to 1912/13, inmates who died at the BC Penitentiary and whose remains were not claimed by their families may have been buried in the “potters’ field” at Eighth Street and Eighth Avenue in New Westminster (also known as the “Douglas Road” cemetery), now the site of New Westminster Secondary School. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, this site was used by the “asylum” (Woodlands) and the provincial jail, and may well have been used by the penitentiary. (A section of the cemetery was also reserved for the burial of Chinese residents, and for “unknown dead” buried by the city.) As early as 1904, the New Westminster Columbian was reporting that room was running out at the Douglas Road site (“Graves at a Premium”, July 5, 1904), and by October 1912 — when space there had become extremely scarce — it was necessary to acquire a permit from the city sanitary inspector before arranging a burial at the site (see “Eighth Street Cemetery”, the British Columbian, October 19, 1912). B
