Here lies all that is mortal of
John Pocock,Who was, during 13 years, Clerk of the Chapel Royal, and 38 years Clerk of this Parish.
In the discharge of his duty how simple, upright, and affectionate he was, will alone be known at the last day.
He came to his grave on the 13th of June, 1846, like a shock of corn cometh in his season, aged 81.
The following, which is on a stone by the footway, just south of the tower, has a melancholy history attached to it:—
Sacred to the Memory of John Rowles, who, in discharging his duties as a Peace Officer of this Town, was unfortunately killed by a Wound from a Bayonet, on the 5th Nov., 1817, Aged 40 years.
The circumstances were: On Tuesday, the 4th of November, 1817, a public notice was issued, warning the inhabitants against illuminating their houses, or celebrating the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, by means of fireworks. Notwithstanding this prohibition, a number of persons, chiefly boys, assembled on the Old Steine, at twilight, in the evening of Wednesday, the 5th, and let off squibs, serpents, crackers, &c. The civil power, in number 16,—headboroughs and patrol,—at the head of which was Mr. John Williams, the High Constable, immediately interfered, and took into custody the offenders against the edict. This sort of warfare lasted until nine o’clock, when a lighted tar-barrel made its appearance. The authorities espied it, and, after a stout resistance by the populace, it was captured and extinguished. Much irritation was engendered in consequence, and the mob, deprived of their fun, seemed inclined to mischief, and, the principal object of their displeasure being the High Constable, they attacked his house, the Baths, which stood on the site now occupied by the Lion Mansion. Mr. White, also, in Castle Square, who had made himself very prominent in the affair, came in for his share of the spleen of the rioters. Stones were hurled with great violence, and the windows of their houses were soon smashed in. Greatly alarmed, Williams sent a message to Mr. Serjeant Runnington, the resident magistrate, and also to the guard-house at the Infantry barracks, Church Street, demanding the aid of the military. Several companies of the 21st regiment of Fusileers, who had but that day arrived in Brighton, marched with fixed bayonets to the Steine, the avenues to which they quickly occupied.
The Riot Act was read by Serjeant Runnington, and the utmost dismay prevailed. About this time several squibs being let off near the soldiery, an attempt was made to capture the offenders. Dreadful to relate, however, while charging, one of the military accidentally thrust his bayonet into the body of Mr. Rowles, a headborough. The steel entered just above the hip, and, passing through, appeared three inches on the other side,—the wound proved to be mortal,—and the ill fated man lingered, in the utmost agony, until half-past seven on Thursday evening, when he died, leaving a pregnant wife and three infant children to lament his untimely end. Two of the patrol, Slaughter and Burt, were also so wounded with the stones, cast by the mob, that they were obliged to be carried home, where they remained for some time in a very dangerous state. A woman, also, was wounded in the head with slugs, fired from a pistol. The disturbance lasted until a late hour of the night, and the military did not repair to their barracks until two or three o’clock the next morning.
On the following morning, the persons who had been apprehended for creating the disturbance, were brought before the sitting magistrates, Mr. Serjeant Runnington and Mr. Hopkins, at the Town Hall.
The civil power was blamed for calling in the military. The coroner’s inquest on the body of Mr. Rowles, after having sat eight days, returned a verdict of “Wilful Murder” against James Day, the principal, and John Williams, High Constable, and James White, stationer, general collector of rates, as accessories before the act. They surrendered to their bail at the Horsham Assizes, on the 25th March, and were found “Not Guilty,” and the judge said, that, so far from any blame being attached to Williams and White, he was fully persuaded that they had acted throughout with the greatest prudence, coolness, and discretion. [115]
The base of the stone cross, to which is attached the legend of St. Nicholas Galley, is a remnant of the superstition that prevailed prior to the Reformation. In primitive times, the south side of every churchyard contained a column placed on a pedestal, having on its summit a cross; and the nearer to this a corpse was interred, so much the sooner—it was believed—would the soul be relieved from purgatory. Hence the reason why the south side of a churchyard most frequently contains the greatest number of interments, individuals having a solemn dread of being buried in the north, where there was no cross. So far, indeed, did primitive Christians carry their devotion for this figure, that they have been accused of worshipping the cross itself. Such was their blind zeal for the sign of the cross, that they violated all bounds of prudence, and Flecknoe quaintly observes:—“That had they their will, a bird should not fly in the air with its wings a-cross, a ship with its cross-yard sail upon the sea, nor profane tailor sit cross-legged upon his shop-board, or have cross-bottoms to wind his thread upon.”
With reference to the particular pillar in question, no records, beyond the legend, exist which might contribute to the solution of its origin, but the probability is that it was erected about the seventh century, when the mania for columns and crosses prevailed.
The New Burial Ground, as it is termed, was added in 1824; and the Cemetery Ground was opened in what was known as Butcher Russell’s field, in 1841, the first burial in it being that of Mary Wheeler, the wife of a labourer, who was employed in laying out and levelling the ground. She died June 27th, 1841, and an obelisk marks her grave.