Opened in 1852, Mount Royal Cemetery is a 165-acre (67 ha) terraced cemetery on the north slope of Mount Royal in the borough of Outremont, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The burial ground shares the mountain with the much larger adjacent Roman Catholic cemetery -- Cimetière Notre-Dame-des-Neiges. Mount Royal Cemetery is now bordered on the southeast by Mount Royal Park, on the west by Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery and on the north by two Jewish cemeteries.

Although the cemetery is non-denominational today, it continues to be governed by its original charter with a board of trustees representing the founding Protestant denominations.

The cemetery is a private non-profit organization. Burial rights have always been offered in perpetuity with the commitment that no graves would ever be reused or abandoned. The founding charter stipulates that all profits should be entirely devoted to the embellishment and improvement of the property.

Mount Royal Cemetery is in operation and even the old portion of the cemetery still has some burial sites available.

War Graves

The cemetery contains 459 war graves of Commonwealth service personnel, 276 from World War I and 183 from World War II, most of which form two War Plots in Section G. A Cross of Sacrifice stands on the boundary with Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery.

Military graves at Mount Royal did not take significance until World War I, when Canada lost over 60 000 soldiers. After this event, the population of the city started looking toward public memory more seriously, and gave an entire section to war veterans and fallen soldiers.

Mount Royal Crematory

The first crematory in Canada was built by Sir Andrew Taylor in 1901 on the eastern side of the Mount Royal Cemetery property with funds donated by Sir William Christopher Macdonald, a well-known tobacco tycoon and great philanthropist. This building is the oldest of its kind in the country and it remained the only crematorium in Quebec until 1975. The first cremation took place on April 18, 1902.

Built with Montreal limestone, the original building had a chapel, a room for the cremation chambers, a large winter storage vault and a conservatory filled with exotic plants. In the 1950s, for maintenance reasons, the conservatory was demolished but the original chapel, on the left of the building, is still intact with a beautiful hand made mosaic floor.

Notable interments

A few of the prominent people interred in the cemetery are:

• Sir John Abbott (1821-1893), Prime Minister of Canada
• Sir Hugh Allan (1810-1882), financier and shipping magnate
• Sir Montagu Allan (1860-1951), businessman, Hockey Hall of Fame member
• Richard Bladworth Angus (1831-1922), banker
• Robert Mitchell Ballantyne (1859-1929), businessman
• William Thomas Benson (1824-1885), businessman, politician
• Frank Calder (1877-1943), National Hockey League executive
• George Caverhill (1858-1937), businessman
• William Clark-Kennedy (1879-1961), Scotland born Victoria Cross recipient
• Sir Arthur Currie (1875-1933), First World War military commander, educator
• J. William Dawson (1820-1899), scientist, educator
• George Mercer Dawson (1849-1901), scientist
• Joseph Doutre (1825-1886), lawyer, writer, major adversary of Quebec Catholicism
• William Dow (1800-1868), brewer and businessman
• Sir George Alexander Drummond (1829-1910), entrepreneur
• William Henry Drummond (1854-1907), Irish-Canadian poet, doctor
• Edith Maude Eaton (1865-1914), author, a.k.a. "Sui Sin Far"
• Charles Edward Frosst (1867-1948), pharmaceuticals manufacturer
• Sir Alexander Galt (1817-1893), businessman, statesman, Father Of Confederation
• Horatio Gates (1777-1834), businessman, statesman
• Andrew Frederick Gault (1833-1903), merchant, industrialist, and philanthropist
• Samuel Gerrard (1767-1857), businessman
• Hugh Graham, 1st Baron Atholstan (1848-1938), newspaper publisher
• Joseph Guibord, (1809-1869), printer, was temporarily interred for six years at Mount Royal, pending litigation about his ultimate burial in Notre-Dame des Neiges Cemetery in 1875
• Charles Melville Hays (1856-1912), Grand Trunk Railway executive and Titanic victim
• Charles Heavysege (1816-1876), author, poet
• Alexander Henderson (1831-1913), merchant and photographer
• Sir Herbert Holt (1856-1941), financier
• Charles Rudolph Hosmer (1851-1927), miller
• C. D. Howe (1886-1960), American-born politician and engineer
• Anna Leonowens (1834-1915), Governess at the Court of Siam, founder of Nova Scotia College of Art and Design
• Sir William C. Macdonald (1831-1917), tobacco manufacturer, philanthropist
• Dugald Lorn MacDougall (1811-1885), stockbroker, investor
• Allan McCarthy (1957-1995), musician, Men Without Hats
• John Wilson McConnell (1877-1963), publisher, philanthropist
• David Ross McCord (1844-1930), lawyer, philanthropic founder of the McCord Museum
• William King McCord (1803-1858), jurist, philanthropist
• Peter McGill (1789-1860), businessman, municipal politician
• Duncan McIntyre (1834-1894), businessman
• Hugh Mackay (1832-1890), businessman
• Robert Mackay (1840-1916), businessman, statesman
• George Martin (1822-1900), poet, editor
• Robert Meighen (1837-1911), businessman
• Charles Meredith (1854-1928), President of the Montreal Stock Exchange
• Frederick Edmund Meredith (1862-1941), Chancellor of Bishop's University
• Sir Vincent Meredith (1850-1929), 1st Baronet of Montreal, President of the Bank of Montreal
• William Campbell James Meredith (1904-1960), Dean of Law at McGill University
• Shadrach Minkins (1815?-1875), American-born fugitive slave rescued from federal custody in Boston in 1851.
• Hartland Molson (1907-2002), brewing magnate, World War II fighter pilot, statesman
• John Molson (1763-1836), brewing tycoon
• Howie Morenz (1902-1937), Hall of Fame ice hockey player
• Henry Morgan (1819-1893), opened first department store in Canada
• Arthur Deane Nesbitt (1910-1978), decorated soldier of World War II, stockbroker
• Arthur J. Nesbitt (1880-1954), cofounder of Nesbitt Thomson & Co. and Power Corporation of Canada
• J. Aird Nesbitt (1907-1985), owner/operator of Ogilvy's department store in Montreal
• William Notman (1826-1891), photographer and businessman
• Alexander Walker Ogilvie (1829-1902), miller, statesman
• William Watson Ogilvie (1835-1900) miller
• Frank L. Packard (1877-1942), mystery writer
• Ward Chipman Pitfield 1892-1939 World War I officer, Founder: Pitfield, McKay & Ross Investment Dealers
• John Redpath (1796-1869), contractor, built the first sugar refinery in Canada
• Robert Reford (1831-1913), entrepreneur and philanthropist
• Robert Wilson Reford (1867-1951), shipping executive, artist, photographer
• Mordecai Richler (1931-2001), author
• James Ross (1848-1913), railway engineer, businessman, philanthropist
• Philip Simpson Ross (1827-1907), founder of the Order of Chartered Accountants of Quebec
• Anne Savage (1896-1971), painter and art teacher
• F. R. Scott (1899-1985), scholar
• Francis Scrimger (1880-1937), physician, Victoria Cross recipient
• Denis Stairs (1889-1980), Chairman, Montreal Engineering Co.
• George Washington Stephens (1832-1904), businessman, lawyer, politician, philanthropist
• Harrison Stephens (1801-1881), American-born merchant
• David Thompson (1770-1857), surveyor and explorer
• David Torrance (1805-1876), merchant, banker
• John Torrance (1786-1870), merchant, shipper
• Jocelyn Gordon Whitehead(Unknown-1954), the man who sucker punched Harry Houdini who died of the injury.
• William Watson (c.1795-1867), miller, businessman, politician
• Thomas Workman (1813-1889), businessman, politician, philanthropist
• William Workman (1807-1878), businessman and municipal politician
• Francis John Young (1893-1929), England born Victoria Cross recipient
• John Young, (1811-1878), entrepreneur, statesman
• Walter P. Zeller (1890-1957), founder of Zellers.
• Sir Mortimer Barnett Davis (1866-1928), businessman and philanthropist
• Simon McTavish (1750-1804), businessman