The Children's Story of Westminster Abbey

by G. E. Troutbeck

We have just spoken of the changes and revolutions that went on in France during the earlier years of the nineteenth century. We are reminded of these when we find in the Abbey the beautiful tomb of the Duc de Montpensier, brother of King Louis Philippe, who died in 1807, while he and his brother were living in exile in England. The Duke is buried in Henry VII’s Chapel, quite close to Dean Stanley. The Duc de Montpensier is the only French prince buried in the Abbey. His monument is one of the finest modern ones that we have at Westminster. Queen Louise of Savoy, wife of King Louis XVIII of France, was also buried for a short time in the Abbey, and there is an interesting account of her funeral in the Precentor’s book. Her body was afterwards removed to Sardinia. Queen Louise died in 1810.

But to return to our own English history. One of the first acts of the new reformed Parliament was to abolish negro slavery in all the English colonies and possessions. This great work of Christian charity had been for years in the minds of many good people who had worked and fought hard for the cause. The measure passed in 1833.

Like the Reform Bill, the abolition of the Slave Trade was one of the greatest events in the nineteenth century, and there are many memorials of it in the Abbey.

We will begin by mentioning Charles James Fox, who was the great political rival of the younger Pitt, and who died a few months after him, in 1806. He was buried in the North Transept, but his monument is in the Nave, not far from Pitt’s. The kneeling figure of the negro on the monument is an allusion to Fox’s last speech in the House of Commons, when he proposed the abolition of the Slave Trade.

In the South Transept there is a monument to Granville Sharp, who did so much in the cause that he was called the father of the Anti-Slavery Movement. He was also one of the founders of the British and Foreign Bible Society. He died in 1813, and the African Society put up the monument to him.

Zachary Macaulay, who had been Governor of Sierra Leone, was another fighter in the same cause. He has a monument in “Whigs’ Corner,” under the North-West Tower.

But the name chiefly remembered when we speak of the Anti-Slavery Movement is that of William Wilberforce, who died in 1833, just before the great Emancipation Day, the day which set the slaves free in all the British dominions. Wilberforce’s monument is in the North Choir aisle, and represents him sitting in a chair with his legs crossed, and in a very odd posture altogether. He is buried in the North Transept.

Near Wilberforce’s monument is that of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, who had also helped in the fight against the Slave Trade. Buxton had also done a great work in the reform of our laws concerning the punishment of criminals, and his labours were shared by Sir James Mackintosh, who has a memorial bust in “Whigs’ Corner.”

Not far off is the monument to Sir Stamford Raffles, the first Governor of the colony of Java, which we had conquered from the Dutch, and which we afterwards gave back to them, much against Sir Stamford Raffles’s advice. England owes her colony at Singapore to the influence of Sir Stamford Raffles, and she also owes him her power in the Eastern Seas. When he finally came home, Raffles founded the Zoological Society of London, and was its first President. He ought to be remembered among the men who helped to do away with slavery, as he himself set free all the negroes who were under his authority. He died in 1826.

Two other monuments in “Whigs’ Corner” remind us of men who worked hard for the abolition of the Slave Trade and for the change in our penal laws. These are the monuments of Lord Holland and of the Marquis of Lansdowne. Lord Holland was the nephew of Charles James Fox, whose monument is close by. He died in 1840. Lord Lansdowne, who died in 1863, had a long political career, which began in the days of Pitt.