Located between Balcarres Street and Morningside Drive in the Morningside district of SW Edinburgh, the Morningside Cemetery was opened by the Metropolitan Cemetery Company in 1878. Extending to 5.3 ha (13 acres), this was the first of a new generation of cemeteries, built on the edge of the city, although urban expansion quickly ensured that it was surrounded by buildings. The cemetery is now maintained by Edinburgh City Council, who took ownership in 1992 and have laid-flat many of the monuments due to safety fears.
Buried here are Nobel prize-winning scientist Sir Edward Appleton (1892 - 1965), the geologist James Geikie (1839 - 1915), poet James Logie Robertson (Hugh Haliburton; 1846 - 1922), the architects John McLachlan (1843-93) and Robert Morham (1839 - 1912), and Alison 'Cummy' Cunningham (1822 - 1913), 'the beloved nurse' of author Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94). The cemetery also includes 81 graves of military personnel, which are the responsibility of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Many who died at the City Poorhouse at Craiglockhart are buried here in unmarked graves.
