The Trafalgar Cemetery was consecrated in June 1798, seven years before the battle of Trafalgar. It was then known as the Southport Ditch Cemetery, and was sometimes regarded as a part of the old St.Jago’s Cemetery, which was situated at the other side of Charles V Wall.

The association with the Battle of Trafalgar does not seem to have been made until many years after the event.Many of the tombstones in the cemetery commemorate the dead of three terrible yellow fever epidemics in 1804, 1813 and 1814.