About the centre of the church is suspended a brass chandelier, consisting of ten branches, which have been lately fitted up with ground-glass burners; it was a gift (by will, 2nd May, 1740) to the church, from Phillip Darby, an old inhabitant of Antigua, and rector of St. John’s.
At the entrance of the church from the north vestibule stands a small marble font, of a semi-spherical form, ornamented with four heads of cherubs, and supported by a corniform pedestal. It is intended to be placed at the extreme end of the middle aisle, immediately before the west entrance, and opposite the altar—a site far more applicable for it than where it now stands.
The church is lighted by fourteen windows: six in the north aisle, six in the south aisle, and two in the east end of the building. Formerly they were all fitted up with jalousies; but within these last few years, the eight nearest the altar have been reglazed with ground glass, arranged in a Gothic pattern. These windows are divided into six compartments; and are so contrived, that, by aid of a turnscrew, they can be opened to a certain height. They certainly add to the beauty of the edifice, but deteriorate from its comfort by rendering it warmer than it otherwise would be: a circumstance not desirable in this fervid climate.
Several fine monuments grace the walls of this sacred building; but the oldest sepulchral inscription is upon a stone slab, in the chancel, to the memory of Mrs. Gilbert, wife of Mr. Gilbert, who introduced methodism[[71]] in Antigua, and who died in 1747.
In the south aisle are the following monuments:—
An elegant mural monument of white marble upon a black ground, erected to the memory of Mrs. Elizabeth Ottley, wife of Richard Ottley, Esq., and daughter of Ashton Warner, speaker of the house of assembly in 1716. The ornamental part of this monument consists of the figure of a seraph with outspread wings, leaning upon a sepulchral urn, bearing a coronal of undying laurel leaves in its right hand; and in its left an inverted torch, partly extinguished, emblematical of the uncertainty of human life. The inscription is as follows:—
“Near to this place is laid, with the remains of her honoured parents, the body of Elizabeth, the pious, amiable, and much-beloved wife of Richard Ottley; who departed this life, in the Island of St Vincent, on Thursday, 28th August, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and sixty-six, in the thirty-second year of her age.
“She was the daughter of Ashton Warner, Esq.,[[72]] Attorney-General of Antigua, by Elizabeth, his wife, and was born the 7th June, 1735, O.S.; married 25th October, in the year 1753, and left issue surviving her, one son and three daughters—viz., Drewry, Elizabeth, Mary Trant, and Alice.
“She possessed a graceful person, an excellent understanding, and a sweetness of disposition that engaged the esteem of all that knew her, and performed with so much complacency the several duties in her family, and those of a good friend and neighbour, that it may be truly said she died universally lamented, and a real loss to that infant colony. Her inconsolable husband (in whose arms she expired, after bearing with admirable fortitude and resignation the excruciating pains of a long and difficult labour) caused this monument to be erected to her memory.
“The son with whom she died reclines upon that breast which would have nourished him had the Almighty so permitted.”