These are specimens of the uses to which the Dissenters’ grounds have been put, and which we want to prevent in the future, for I hope that it may not be long before many of those that have not been entirely lost are “converted” into cheerful resting-places for the use of the living.
It is the question of their maintenance, when they are once laid out, that has hitherto caused so much difficulty, and this not only with the Dissenters’ grounds, but also with the churchyards. Where the Vestry or District Board of Works will undertake to maintain a ground under the Open Spaces Acts it is simple enough, and in many cases this has been done most effectually. But some of these bodies will not accept the responsibility. The Corporation keeps up St. Paul’s Churchyard and Bunhill Fields, and the London County Council maintains Whitfield’s Tabernacle ground and ten graveyards which were laid out by the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association. It was with great difficulty and after a hard fight that the Earl of Meath managed to induce the Council to take over some of these grounds (and this only year by year), together with several squares and playgrounds, the maintenance of which was too heavy a burden upon the funds of a voluntary society. Of late years the Association has not laid out any burial-ground until its future maintenance is legally secured. A short time ago, soon after the publication of the return prepared by me for the Council, the Parks and Open Spaces Committee recommended that a conference should be held to consider some general scheme for the treatment of the burial-grounds which are still closed, their acquisition for the use of the public, and their maintenance, it being felt somewhat unjust that while some of the Metropolitan vestries and boards (such as St. Pancras and Hackney) were annually expending considerable sums in the upkeep of graveyard gardens, others (such as Rotherhithe and Limehouse) declined to do so. But the recommendation, when it came before the general meeting of the Council, was withdrawn for the time being, and the whole question remains in statu quo ante.
CHAPTER VIII
THE BURIAL-PLACES OF FOREIGNERS IN LONDON.
“The very names recorded here are strange,
Of foreign accent, and of different climes;
Alvares and Revira interchange
With Abraham and Jacob of old times.”
Longfellow.
It is only natural that in London, to which so many from other countries have fled, and where so many foreigners have lived, worked, and died, there should be evidences left of their places of interment. Solitary cases of their burial among Englishmen are, of course, to be met with everywhere, and there are many such in the London graveyards. In Rotherhithe Churchyard is a well-known tombstone erected to the memory of Prince Lee-boo of the Pelew Islands, who died in 1784; in St. Ann’s, Soho, there is a tablet to that of Theodore, the last King of Corsica; there is the grave of an Indian chief in the burial-ground of St. John’s, Westminster, in Horseferry Road; and it is said that the first person interred in a part of Bishopsgate Churchyard was a Frenchman named Martin de la Tour, while this ground also used to contain a very old altar tomb with a Persian inscription round it to the memory of Coya Shawsware, a Persian merchant, who died in 1626. The edition of Stow’s “Survey,” published in 1633, contains a picture of this monument and an account of the funeral ceremonies which took place at the grave. Maitland also refers to it, but gives a totally different first name to the merchant. It is evident that for some time after his burial his son and other friends used to gather at the grave twice a day for prayer and funeral devotions, until driven away by the ridicule of the populace.