On the east side of the Hospital, adjoining Queen’s Road East, originally called Jews’ Row, is the cemetery, formerly used for the interment of the officers and pensioners belonging to the establishment. Near the entrance, on the right, is the tomb of Simon Box, the first pensioner there buried in 1692.
There is a very droll epitaph in this burial ground, to the memory of William Hiseland, which states that “when an hundred years old he took unto him a wife.” It appears he had served in the army 80 years. He was born in 1620, and died in 1732, so that at his decease he was 112 years old. A literary gentleman, referring to the above marriage, exclaimed, “Oh, the centenarian wooer and antidiluvian bridegroom—of what chronology was his bride? Let us hope she was as silly at one end of the mortal story, as he was in his second childhood, at the other!”
In this ground was buried General Sir William Fawcett, K.B., Governor of the Hospital, who died in 1804, aged 76. His remains were attended to the grave by the Prince of Wales, the Dukes of York, Clarence, Kent, and Cambridge, and by several noblemen and general officers.
Although Dr. Monsey was not buried here, yet, as he died in the Hospital, we must not omit to notice so remarkable a character. Sir Robert Walpole assiduously cultivated his acquaintance, and the celebrated Earl of Chesterfield acknowledged with gratitude the benefits he had derived from his medical assistance.
The character of Dr. Monsey, in point of natural humour, is thought to have borne a near resemblance to that of Dean Swift. His classical abilities were indeed enviable, and his memory wonderfully retentive; insomuch that he was allowed to be a storehouse of anecdote. The exuberance of his wit, which, like the web of life, was of a mingled yarn, often rendered his conversation exceedingly entertaining, sometimes rather offensive, and at other times pointedly pathetic and instructive. Sir Robert Walpole knew and valued the worth of his “Norfolk Doctor,” as he called him; but though he knew it, he neglected it. The Prime Minister was very fond of billiards, at which his friend very much excelled him. “How happens it,” said Sir Robert, in a social hour, “that nobody will beat me at billiards, or contradict me, but Dr. Monsey?” “They get places,” said the Doctor, “I get a dinner and praise.”
The following anecdote is very characteristic of the Doctor’s turn of temper, and is said to be well attested. He lived so long in his office as physician to Chelsea Hospital, that, during many changes of Administration, the reversion of his place had been successively promised to several medical friends of the Paymaster-General of the Forces. Looking out of his window one day, and observing a gentleman below, examining the hospital and gardens, who he knew had secured the reversion of his place, the Doctor came down stairs, and going out to him, accosted him thus:—“Well, sir, I see you are examining your house and garden, that ARE TO BE, and I will assure you they are both very pleasant and very convenient. But I must tell you one circumstance—you are the fifth man that has had the reversion of the place, and I have buried them all. And what is more,” continued he, looking very scientifically at him, “there is something in your face that tells me I shall bury you too!” The event justified the prediction, for the gentleman died some years after; and, what is still more extraordinary, at the time of the Doctor’s death there was not a person who seems to have even solicited the promise of a reversion. He died in 1788, aged 94.
On a table monument is an inscription to the memory of John Wilson, Esq., Deputy Treasurer of Chelsea Hospital, and Lieutenant-Colonel of the Royal Volunteers. He died of apoplexy in 1812, aged 56. The monument was erected by the officers of his regiment, as a token of their esteem.
Benjamin Moseley, M.D., thirty years physician to the hospital, was buried here in 1819, aged 73.
General Sir David Dundas, Governor of Chelsea Hospital, was buried here in 1820. His funeral was attended by the Duke of York, accompanied by his Staff.
Burial of a Female Dragoon.—Christiana Davis died at Chelsea in 1739. For several years she served as a dragoon, undiscovered, in the Royal Irish Enniskillen Regiment; but receiving a wound in her body she was then discovered, though her comrades had not the least suspicion of her being a woman. She behaved with great valour afterwards in Flanders, and was very useful in a battle to supply the soldiers with water and other necessaries, even to the mouth of a cannon. She had an allowance of one shilling per day, which she received till her death. She was interred, according to her desire, amongst the old pensioners, and three vollies were fired over her grave.