[2] The cemetery is on the north-east side of Aldersbrook Road, in Manor Park, in the London Borough of Newham, near Epping Forest.

The Commissioners were responsible for public hygiene and sanitation and were in effect also the burial board for the City of London, due to an Act of Parliament in 1852.

The 200 acres (0.81 km2) of land suited the construction of the cemetery because it was accessible—only 7 miles (11 km) from the City of London—and had attractive planting and porous, gravelly, well-drained soil.

It was laid out in 1855 by William Haywood, who designated 89 acres (360,000 m2) for burial but also reserved land for plots sold in perpetuity, buildings, landscaping and roads.

The first interment was on 24 June 1856, although the cemetery was not consecrated until November 1857, due to legal difficulties (which were solved in the Burial Act 1857).

Approximately 600,000 people have been interred here and with the remains from over 30 London churchyards also placed on the site, the figure is approaching 1 million.

[5] At the beginning of the 20th century a crematorium was built (designed by D. J. Ross), at a cost of around £7,000 and was opened on 25 October 1904 in the presence of Sir Henry Thompson.

The cemetery grounds have been listed Grade I on the Historic England National Register of Parks and Gardens.

This however has proven to be an unpopular method of burial; part of the unused catacombs have now been converted into columbarium space.

There are 729 identified Commonwealth service personnel of the First and Second World Wars commemorated at the cemetery, many buried in a War Graves plot, which has a Cross of Sacrifice and a Screen Wall memorial that lists casualties who are buried in the plot or elsewhere in the cemetery without headstones, and those cremated at the City of London Crematorium.