Henry III rebuilt Westminster Abbey in honour of the Royal Saint Edward the Confessor whose relics were placed in a shrine in the sanctuary and now lie in a burial vault beneath the 1268 Cosmati mosaic pavement, in front of the High Altar. Henry III himself was interred nearby in a superb chest tomb with effigial monument. Many of the Plantagenet kings of England, their wives and other relatives, were also buried in the Abbey. From the time of Edward the Confessor until the death of George II in 1760, most Kings and Queens of England were buried here, although there are exceptions (most notably Edward IV, Henry VIII and Charles I who are buried in St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle). All monarchs who died after George II were buried in Windsor; most were laid to rest in St George's Chapel, although Queen Victoria and Edward VIII are buried at Frogmore, where the Royal Family also has a private cemetery.
Since the Middle Ages, aristocrats were buried inside chapels, while monks and other people associated with the Abbey were buried in the Cloisters and other areas. One of these was Geoffrey Chaucer, who was buried here as he had apartments in the Abbey where he was employed as master of the King's Works. Other poets, writers and musicians were buried or memorialised around Chaucer in what became known as Poets' Corner. These include: W. H. Auden, William Blake, Robert Burns, Lord Byron, Charles Dickens, John Dryden, George Eliot, T. S. Eliot, Thomas Gray, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Samuel Johnson, John Keats, Rudyard Kipling, Jenny Lind, John Masefield, John Milton, Laurence Olivier, Alexander Pope, Nicholas Rowe, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Thomas Shadwell, William Shakespeare, Alfred Lord Tennyson and William Wordsworth. Abbey musicians such as Henry Purcell were also buried in their place of work.
Subsequently it became one of Britain's most significant honours to be buried or commemorated here. The practice of burying national figures in the Abbey began under Oliver Cromwell with the burial of Admiral Robert Blake in 1657. The practice spread to include generals, admirals, politicians, doctors and scientists such as Isaac Newton, buried on 4 April 1727 and Charles Darwin buried 19 April 1882.
Eight British Prime Ministers are buried in the Abbey; William Pitt the Elder, William Pitt the Younger, George Canning, Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, William Ewart Gladstone, Andrew Bonar Law, Neville Chamberlain and Clement Attlee.
During the early 20th century, for reasons of space, it became increasingly common to bury cremated remains rather than coffins. In 1905 the actor Sir Henry Irving was cremated and his ashes buried in the Abbey, thereby becoming the first person ever to be cremated prior to interment. This marked a milestone as after the death of Sir Joseph Hooker in December 1911, the Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey chose to offer Hooker a grave near Charles Darwin's in the nave but also insisted that he be cremated before. His widow however declined and so Hooker's body was buried in the churchyard of St. Anne's Church, Kew. The majority of interments at the Abbey are of cremated remains, but some burials still take place – Frances Challen, wife of the Rev Sebastian Charles, Canon of Westminster, was buried alongside her husband in the south choir aisle in 2014. Members of the Percy Family have a family vault, "The Northumberland Vault", in St Nicholas's chapel, within the Abbey.
In the floor just inside the great west door, in the centre of the nave, is the tomb of The Unknown Warrior, an unidentified British soldier killed on a European battlefield during the First World War. He was buried in the Abbey on 11 November 1920. There are many graves in the floors of the Abbey, but this is the only grave on which it is forbidden to walk.
See also: Category:Burials at Westminster Abbey
Monarchs and their consorts
The following English, Scottish and British Monarchs and their consorts are buried in the Abbey:
Sæberht of Essex
St Edward the Confessor and his wife, Edith of Wessex
Henry III of England
Edward I of England and his wife, Eleanor of Castile
Edward III of England and his wife, Philippa of Hainault
Richard II of England and his wife, Anne of Bohemia
Henry V of England and his wife, Catherine of Valois
Edward V of England
Anne Neville, wife of Richard III
Henry VII of England and his wife, Elizabeth of York
Edward VI of England
Anne of Cleves, wife of King Henry VIII
Mary I of England
Elizabeth I of England
In the 19th century researchers looking for the tomb of James I partially opened the underground vault containing the remains of Elizabeth I and Mary I of England. The lead coffins were stacked, with Elizabeth's resting on top of her half-sister's.
James VI & I of Scotland England and Ireland and his wife, Anne of Denmark
The position of the tomb of James I of England was lost for several centuries. In the 19th century, following an excavation of many of the vaults beneath the floor, the lead coffin was found in the Henry VII vault.
Charles II of England and Scotland
Mary II of England and Scotland
William III of England and II of Scotland
Anne, Queen of Great Britain and her husband, Prince George of Denmark
George II of Great Britain and his wife, Caroline of Ansbach
Other monarchs and consorts
Mary, Queen of Scots, mother of James VI & I
Elizabeth of Bohemia, daughter of James VI & I
The following are buried in the Nave:
The following are buried in the North Transept:
Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh
George Canning
Charles John Canning, 1st Earl Canning
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham
Charles James Fox
William Ewart Gladstone
Henry Grattan
Edmund Crouchback, 1st Earl of Lancaster
William Pitt the Younger
Sir John Malcolm
William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield
Sir Hugh Vaughan
William Wilberforce
The following are buried in the South Transept which is known as Poets' Corner:
The following are buried in the Cloisters:
Edmund Ayrton
Aphra Behn
Gen. John Burgoyne
Muzio Clementi
Percy Dearmer
Lord Fraser of Lonsdale
Howard Nixon
Johann Peter Salomon
William Shield
John Thorndike
William Turner
James Wright
The following are buried in the North Choir Aisle:
Henry Purcell
Ralph Vaughan Williams
William Sterndale Bennett
The following are buried in the South Choir Aisle:
Andrew Bell
James Kendall
Sir Paul Methuen
Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell
Dame Sybil Thorndike
Charles Whitworth, 1st Baron Whitworth
The following are buried in the Ambulatory Chapels:
Sir Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter, KG, Lord Burghley (d. 1623)
Lady Dorothy Neville Cecil (d. 1608; 1st wife of Sir Thomas Cecil, daughter of John Neville, 4th Baron Latimer)
Northumberland Vault
List of burials:
George Seymour, Viscount Beauchamp (d. 1745; only son of Algernon Seymour, 7th Duke of Somerset)
Algernon Seymour, 7th Duke of Somerset (d. 1750)
Frances Percy, Neé Thynne, Duchess of Somerset, (d. 1754; widow of 7th Duke)
Lady Elizabeth Anne Frances Percy, (d. 1761; daughter of the 1st Duke of Northumberland)
Elizabeth Percy, Neé Seymour, Duchess of Northumberland (d.1776)
Lady Elizabeth Percy, (d. 1779; daughter of Algernon Percy, 1st Earl of Beverley, at the time styled Lord Algernon Percy)
Lady Charlotte Percy, (d. 1781; daughter of Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland, at the time styled Earl Percy)
Hugh Percy, 1st Duke of Northumberland, (d. 1786)
Lord Henry Percy, (d. 1794; son of Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland)
Lady Louisa Margaret Percy, (d. 1796; daughter of Algernon Percy, 1st Earl of Beverley)
Lord Algernon James Percy, (d. 1805; son of George Percy, 5th Duke of Northumberland, 'at the time styled Lord Lovaine)
Lord Henry Algernon Pitt Percy, (d. 1809; son of George Percy, 5th Duke of Northumberland, 'at the time styled Lord Lovaine)
Lady Margaret Percy, (d. 1810; daughter of George Percy, 5th Duke of Northumberland, 'at the time styled Lord Lovaine)
Isabella Susanna Percy, Neé Burrell, Countess of Beverley, (d. 1810; Widow of Algernon Percy, 1st Earl of Beverley)
Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland (d. 1817)
Lady Elizabeth Percy, (d. 1820; daughter of Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland)
Frances Julia Percy, Neé Burrell, Duchess of Northumberland, (d. 1820; 2nd wife of the 2nd Duke of Northumberland)
Hugh Percy, 3rd Duke of Northumberland (d. 1847)
Lady Agnes Buller, Neé Percy, (d. 1856; daughter of Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland; wife of Major General F.T. Buller)
Algernon Percy, 4th Duke of Northumberland (d. 1865)
Charlotte Florentia Percy, Neé Clive, Duchess of Northumberland, (d. 1866)
George Percy, 5th Duke of Northumberland, (d. 1867)
General Lord Henry Hugh Manvers Percy VC KCB, (d. 1877)
Lady Louisa Percy, (d. 1883; daughter of George Percy, 5th Duke of Northumberland)
Louisa Percy, Neé Drummond, Duchess of Northumberland, (d. 1890; wife of Algernon George Percy, 6th Duke of Northumberland)
Algernon George Percy, 6th Duke of Northumberland, (d. 1899)
Alan Ian Percy, 8th Duke of Northumberland (d. 1930)
Helen Magdalen Percy, Neé Gordon-Lennox, Duchess of Northumberland, (d. 1965)
Hugh Algernon Percy, 10th Duke of Northumberland, (d. 1988)
Elizabeth Diana Percy, Neé Montagu Douglas Scott, Duchess of Northumberland, (d. 2012) Ashes interred
Katherine Percy, Neé Neville, Countess of Northumberland, (d. 1596; daughter of John Neville, 4th Baron Latimer; wife of Henry Percy, 8th Earl of Northumberland)
Robert Aytoun
Eleanor de Bohun
Anne of Cleves
Lionel Cranfield, 1st Earl of Middlesex
John of Eltham, Earl of Cornwall
Sir Rowland Hill
Simon Langham
Edward Talbot, 8th Earl of Shrewsbury
William de Valence, 1st Earl of Pembroke
Catherine of Valois
George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham
Katherine Villiers, Duchess of Buckingham
The following are buried in Henry VII's Chapel:
Antoine Philippe, Duke of Montpensier, brother of French King Louis-Philippe I
Joseph Addison (buried in a vault in North Aisle; also a white marble statue in Poets' Corner)
Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox (buried, with her son Charles, in a tomb in South Aisle)
Hugh Dowding, 1st Baron Dowding
George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle (also memorial Henry VII Chapel, South Aisle)
George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax
Prince William, Duke of Gloucester (son of Queen Anne)
Viscount Trenchard
Maj. Gen. Charles Worsley (no memorial remains)
The following are commemorated in the Abbey and/or had their Memorial Service in the Abbey, but were buried elsewhere:
Christopher Anstey, buried at St. Swithin's Church Bath, Somerset
Dame Peggy Ashcroft, cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, London
WH Auden, buried in Kirchstetten.
Jane Austen, buried in Winchester Cathedral, Hampshire
Robert, Lord Baden-Powell, buried in Nyeri, Kenya, and his wife Lady Olave Baden-Powell, whose ashes are also buried in Nyeri, Kenya.
Stanley Baldwin, cremated at Golders Green Crematorium and ashes buried in Worcester Cathedral, Worcestershire
Admiral Robert Blake (on a stone memorial in the south choir aisle), initially buried in the Abbey but reburied in St Margaret's, Westminster in 1661.
William Booth, buried at Stoke Newington, London Borough of Hackney
Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten of Aldeburgh, buried at the parish church of Aldeburgh
Charlotte Brontë, Emily Jane Brontë, Anne Brontë; Charlotte and Emily are buried at Haworth, while Anne is buried at Scarborough
Lord Byron, buried at Hucknall, Nottinghamshire
Sir Winston Churchill, buried at Bladon, Oxfordshire
John Clare, buried in St Botolph's churchyard, Helpston, Cambridgeshire
James Cornewall, buried at sea off Toulon. His monument in the Abbey was the first ever to be erected by Parliament at public expense.
Edward Cooke, buried in Calcutta
Noël Coward, buried on the grounds of his home Firefly Estate in Jamaica
William Cowper (in a stained glass window unveiled by George W. Childs in 1875), buried in East Dereham, Norfolk
Diana, Princess of Wales, buried at Althorp, Northamptonshire
Richard Dimbleby, buried in St Peter's churchyard, Lynchmere, West Sussex
Paul Dirac, buried in Tallahassee, Florida
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, buried at Hughenden Manor, Buckinghamshire
Sir Francis Drake, buried at sea off Portobelo, Panama
Sir Edward Elgar, buried in St Wulftan's RC Church in Little Malvern, Worcestershire
Sir John Franklin, presumably buried at sea near King William Island, Canada
Adam Lindsay Gordon, buried in Australia
George Green, mathematician, buried in his native Nottinghamshire.
John Harrison, buried in St John's Church in Hampstead, North London
Philip Larkin, buried in Cottingham municipal cemetery near Hull
Rev Evelyn Levett Sutton, prebendary of Westminster and chaplain to the House of Commons who collapsed after reading the ninth commandment during Sunday services and died the next day (in a monument)
C.S. Lewis, buried in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church, Headington, Oxford
Jenny Lind, buried at Great Malvern, Worcestershire
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, buried at Cambridge, Massachusetts
George Herbert (in a stained glass window unveiled by George W. Childs in 1875)
James Ramsay Macdonald, buried at Spynie, near Lossiemouth, Grampian
Sir Robert Menzies, cremated in Australia
Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, buried in Romsey Abbey.
William Shakespeare, buried at Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire
Dylan Thomas (in a plaque unveiled in 1982), buried at Laugharne
Thomas Totty, buried at Portsmouth Garrison Chapel, Portsmouth, Hampshire
Charles Wesley, buried at Old Marylebone, London
John Wesley, buried at City Road Chapel, London
Oscar Wilde (in a stained glass window unveiled in 1995), buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris
Gen. James Wolfe, buried at St Alfege Church, Greenwich, South-East London
Sir Adrian Boult, his body was willed to science
Sixteen Great War poets are commemorated on a slate stone unveiled 11 November 1985, in the South Transept (Poets' Corner):
Richard Aldington, buried in France
Laurence Binyon, author of For the Fallen, buried in Reading, Berkshire
Edmund Blunden, buried in Long Melford, Suffolk
Rupert Brooke, author of The Soldier, buried in Skyros, Greece
Wilfrid Gibson
Robert Graves, author of I, Claudius and the only poet of the sixteen still living at the time of the commemoration, buried in Deià, Majorca, Spain
Julian Grenfell, buried in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France
Ivor Gurney, buried in Twigworth, Gloucestershire
David Jones, buried in Crofton Park, Lewisham
Robert Nichols
Wilfred Owen, author of Dulce et Decorum Est and Anthem for Doomed Youth, buried in Ors, France
Herbert Read, buried in Stonegrave, North Yorkshire
Isaac Rosenberg, buried in Pas de Calais, France
Siegfried Sassoon, buried in Mells, Somerset
Charles Sorley, also commemorated at the Loos Memorial
Edward Thomas, buried in Agny Military Cemetery, France
Above the Great West Door, ten 20th-century Christian martyrs from across the world are depicted in statues; from left to right:
St Maximilian Kolbe (d.1941)
Manche Masemola (d.1928)
Janani Luwum (d.1977)
Grand Duchess St Elizabeth of Russia (d.1918)
Martin Luther King, Jr (d.1968)
Óscar Romero (d.1980)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (d.1945)
Esther John (d.1960)
Lucian Tapiedi (d.1942)
Wang Zhiming (d.1973)
King Harold I was originally buried in the Abbey, but his body was subsequently exhumed, beheaded, and thrown into a fen in June 1040. The body was later rescued and re-buried in the church of St Clement Danes in Westminster.
A number of Cromwellians were also buried in the Abbey but later removed, in 1661, on the orders of King Charles II, and buried in a pit in St Margaret's churchyard, adjoining the Abbey. A modern plaque on the exterior wall of the church records the names of those who were disinterred:
Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector
Admiral Robert Blake
John Pym
In November 1869, at the request of the Dean of Westminster and with the approval of Queen Victoria, the philanthropist George Peabody was given a temporary burial in the Abbey, but later moved and buried in Salem, Massachusetts.