Yesterday I was in North Kent with the Kent Archaeologocal Society reporting on their latest venture which reported that another 1,653 memorial inscriptions (‘MIs’) recorded at seven parish churches and cemeteries in north Kent have been added to the Kent Archaeological Society’s website, bringing the total number of parishes and villages covered across the county since the project began 10 years ago to nearly 300.
The latest postings include MIs from what is arguably the most famous churchyard in fiction, immortalized by Charles Dickens in Great Expectations.
St James, Cooling, on the Thames marshes, is reputedly where orphan Pip recalled,
‘As I never saw my father or my mother, my first fancies regarding what they were like were unreasonably derived from their tombstones’.
Escaped convict Abel Magwitch pounced from behind one of them, terrifying Pip by demanding food and a file to remove his leg irons.
Cooling village also has a special place in history. Its castle was originally owned by the Cobham and Oldcastle families and is now the home of bandleader Jools Holland.
Cooling Castle, photographed c. 1903 by Catharine Weed Barnes Ward
for her husband Henry Snowden Ward’s book The Real Dickens Land
The MIs, recorded between 2007 and 2013, cover All Hallows (All Saints), Chatham (St Mary ‘s Church where Charles Dickens once worshipped), Cooling (St James), Frindsbury (All Saints), Hoo (St Werburgh), Rochester (St Nicholas Cemetery) and Shorne (St Peter and St Paul).
They can be found at http://www.kentarchaeology.org.uk/Research/Libr/MIs/MIslist.htm and http://tinyurl.com/lupdcl
Among the most notable graves and MIs are …
Chatham (St Mary)
Three members of the Mills family and 12 others, including a boatman, drowned while attempting to pass through Rochester Bridge when their boat struck a piece of timber which had been placed, without warning, across an arch under repair.
Sally Dadd, ‘died suddenly on her father’s birthday "Reader, take [warning]/ gone in a moment” ’.
William Gilbert Child, Colonel, 19th Dragoons, who ‘having spent 19 years in India fell victim to the late fire at Chatham and died after a long and painful illness’.
Cooling (St James)
John William Murton of Cooling Castle, ‘who on his passage to Calcutta in the ship Monarch fell overboard and was drowned when off Rio De Janeiro’ (extract from captain’s log reads: ‘and so perished one of the finest and best hearted seamen who ever trod a ship's deck. I have lost a trustworthy officer and a valued friend peace be to his remains’).
Frindsbury (All Saints)
Michael Stanley Epps ‘who died 21st October 1931 aged one day and also his brother John Francis died 14th September 1935 aged one day’.
John George Mount, ‘45 years in the RN … and with Admiral Lord Nelson at Trafalgar 21st Oct 1805’.
Catharine and Susanna Anderson, wives of George Anderson, ‘who hath been gunner in ten of His Majestie's ships’.
Benjamin Baker, potter, ‘who suddenly met his death September 2nd 1900 …A sudden change/I in a moment fell/I had no time to bid my friends farewell/Think this not strange, death happens to all/This day was mine/tomorrow you may fall’.
William Halls, ‘late captain of the barge Trader who was drowned by being run down by the S.S. Tay in November 1886 and found July 12th 1887’.
Hoo (St Werburgh)
Thomas Aveling, pioneer builder of steam traction engines, some of which were used to plough and drain the Thames marshes.
William White, ‘most inhumanely murdered in the bosom of his family by a gun discharged through a window’. His son George was suspected of the murder but not charged.
David Webb and Alfred Groves, who drowned in their sleep when their barge foundered in the Thames.
The three children of William Lionel Wyllie RA (prolific marine painter and etcher), none of whom lived for more than six days.
Rochester: St Nicholas Cemetery
Captain Herbert Claude Morton, ‘killed in the explosion of HMS Bulwark’. The ship exploded on November 26 1914 while anchored off Sheerness, with the loss of 736 men.
John Barnaby, ‘late measurer in HM Dockyard, Chatham’.
Charles Bird, ‘who for 51 years was the servant of the Rochester, Chatham and Strood Gaslight Company’.
Shorne: St Peter and St Paul’s Church
Sarah Bevan, who left instructions to be buried in her ‘usual night clothes, wrapped in a long white dress, in an inner coffin, then in a lead coffin covered with black cloth, black plates and nails’ and ‘kept 10 days before burial and taken to the churchyard with two black coaches to attend’.
Elizabeth and John Blackman, ten of whose children died in infancy.
John Tomlin, ‘cut off in his full strength by the smallpox’.
George Bennett, bricklayer, ‘in his day a famous cricketer’ who played for Kent and, in 1862, for England in Australia.
Ebeneezer Hollands, farmer, who celebrated two silver weddings. His first wife died in 1919 and he married again in 1921.
Pictures and text courtesy of Kent Archaeological Society
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| Cooling Castle, photographed c. 1903 |
St James, Cooling, on the Thames marshes, is reputedly where orphan Pip recalled,
‘As I never saw my father or my mother, my first fancies regarding what they were like were unreasonably derived from their tombstones’.
Escaped convict Abel Magwitch pounced from behind one of them, terrifying Pip by demanding food and a file to remove his leg irons.
Cooling village also has a special place in history. Its castle was originally owned by the Cobham and Oldcastle families and is now the home of bandleader Jools Holland.
Cooling Castle, photographed c. 1903 by Catharine Weed Barnes Ward
for her husband Henry Snowden Ward’s book The Real Dickens Land
The MIs, recorded between 2007 and 2013, cover All Hallows (All Saints), Chatham (St Mary ‘s Church where Charles Dickens once worshipped), Cooling (St James), Frindsbury (All Saints), Hoo (St Werburgh), Rochester (St Nicholas Cemetery) and Shorne (St Peter and St Paul).
They can be found at http://www.kentarchaeology.org.uk/Research/Libr/MIs/MIslist.htm and http://tinyurl.com/lupdcl
Among the most notable graves and MIs are …
Chatham (St Mary)
Three members of the Mills family and 12 others, including a boatman, drowned while attempting to pass through Rochester Bridge when their boat struck a piece of timber which had been placed, without warning, across an arch under repair.
Sally Dadd, ‘died suddenly on her father’s birthday "Reader, take [warning]/ gone in a moment” ’.
William Gilbert Child, Colonel, 19th Dragoons, who ‘having spent 19 years in India fell victim to the late fire at Chatham and died after a long and painful illness’.
Cooling (St James)
John William Murton of Cooling Castle, ‘who on his passage to Calcutta in the ship Monarch fell overboard and was drowned when off Rio De Janeiro’ (extract from captain’s log reads: ‘and so perished one of the finest and best hearted seamen who ever trod a ship's deck. I have lost a trustworthy officer and a valued friend peace be to his remains’).
Frindsbury (All Saints)
Michael Stanley Epps ‘who died 21st October 1931 aged one day and also his brother John Francis died 14th September 1935 aged one day’.
John George Mount, ‘45 years in the RN … and with Admiral Lord Nelson at Trafalgar 21st Oct 1805’.
Catharine and Susanna Anderson, wives of George Anderson, ‘who hath been gunner in ten of His Majestie's ships’.
Benjamin Baker, potter, ‘who suddenly met his death September 2nd 1900 …A sudden change/I in a moment fell/I had no time to bid my friends farewell/Think this not strange, death happens to all/This day was mine/tomorrow you may fall’.
William Halls, ‘late captain of the barge Trader who was drowned by being run down by the S.S. Tay in November 1886 and found July 12th 1887’.
Hoo (St Werburgh)
Thomas Aveling, pioneer builder of steam traction engines, some of which were used to plough and drain the Thames marshes.
William White, ‘most inhumanely murdered in the bosom of his family by a gun discharged through a window’. His son George was suspected of the murder but not charged.
David Webb and Alfred Groves, who drowned in their sleep when their barge foundered in the Thames.
The three children of William Lionel Wyllie RA (prolific marine painter and etcher), none of whom lived for more than six days.
Rochester: St Nicholas Cemetery
Captain Herbert Claude Morton, ‘killed in the explosion of HMS Bulwark’. The ship exploded on November 26 1914 while anchored off Sheerness, with the loss of 736 men.
John Barnaby, ‘late measurer in HM Dockyard, Chatham’.
Charles Bird, ‘who for 51 years was the servant of the Rochester, Chatham and Strood Gaslight Company’.
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| The Comport burial plot, photographed c. 1903 |
Sarah Bevan, who left instructions to be buried in her ‘usual night clothes, wrapped in a long white dress, in an inner coffin, then in a lead coffin covered with black cloth, black plates and nails’ and ‘kept 10 days before burial and taken to the churchyard with two black coaches to attend’.
Elizabeth and John Blackman, ten of whose children died in infancy.
John Tomlin, ‘cut off in his full strength by the smallpox’.
George Bennett, bricklayer, ‘in his day a famous cricketer’ who played for Kent and, in 1862, for England in Australia.
Ebeneezer Hollands, farmer, who celebrated two silver weddings. His first wife died in 1919 and he married again in 1921.
Pictures and text courtesy of Kent Archaeological Society
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