Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/187

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10 s. x. AUG. 22, 1908.] NOTES AND QUERIES.


151

They occupy a central position close under the north wall. Taking them in order from west to east, I copied the inscriptions as follows:—

1. Samuel Gurney, died 1856, aged 69.
Elizabeth Gurney, died 1855, aged 70.

2. Joseph Fry, died 1861, aged 84.
Elizabeth, wife of Joseph Fry, died 1845, aged 65.[1]

3. Elizabeth Fry, died 1844, aged 65.
Gurney Reynolds, died 1844, aged 12.

4. Elizabeth Reynolds, died 1830, aged 4 months.

5. Elizabeth Fry, died 1815, aged 4[2].

6. Susannah Buxton, died 1811, aged 7 months.

7. Lucy Fry, died 1869, aged 46.

The last (No. 7) faces eastward.

The oldest stone in the enclosure is that of Mr. Wm. Mead, the donor of the ground. It stands in a central position, close beside the path, and is the only memorial not of a uniform type, being taller and containing more particulars than the others. It is thus inscribed verb, et lit.:—

Here Lyeth yᵉ Body
of William Mead
Esqʳ who departᵈ
this Life the 3ᵈ day
of April Anno Dᴺᴵ
1713, in yᵉ 86ᵗʰ year
of His Age
And also Mᴿˢ Sarah Mead
died the 9ᵗʰ of June 1714
in her [sic] 71ˢᵗ Year of her Age.

John T. Page.
Long Itchington, Warwickshire.


The Friends' Burial-Ground attached to Drapers' Almshouses near Margate, founded by Michael Yoakley in 1708, has been used for interments since 1769. There are only seven memorial stones in the burial area, and they are flat on the ground. The following is a list of them, with their sizes in inches:

Christiana Ivens | died | 1ˢᵗ month 24 | 1857 | Aged 72. —16 by 24 in.

Helen Lucy Knight | aged 17 yʳˢ | died | 3ʳᵈ of 8ᵗʰ mo. 1867. —22 by 30 in.

Thomas Marten | died | 26ᵗʰ of 1ˢᵗ mo. 1869 | in his 21ˢᵗ year. —22 by 33 in.

Frederick James Knight | died | 12ᵗʰ of 1ˢᵗ month 1870 | aged 19 years. —22 by 30 in.

Edward Marsh | died 20ᵗʰ of 1ˢᵗ monᵗʰ 1884 | aged 72 years. —24 by 33 in.

Mary Sholl | died 10ᵗʰ day of 5ᵗʰ month | 1884 | aged 77 years. —24 by 33 in.

Ellen Marsh | died | the 20ᵗʰ day of 11ᵗʰ month 1887 | aged 76 years. 24 by 33 in.

W. J. Mercer.


Mr. Harry Hems's notes on the memorial stones in the Quakers' Cemetery, Exeter, throw new and interesting light on the question of Nonconformist burial-grounds, but I am not quite satisfied that they upset my statement that the Society of Friends did not allow memorial stones until 1851. My information was taken from the manuscript minute-book of the Dover Preparative Meeting of the Society of Friends, which covers a period from 1818 to 1867; and the document from which I quoted was the following report:—

To the Monthly Meeting.

We your Committee appointed to consider the best mode of carrying into effect the minute of the Yearly Meeting of 1850, on the subject of gravestones, would suggest that parties applying to the Monthly Meeting be allowed to place on the graves of their deceased Friends a plain flat Yorkshire or Portland stone, laid horizontally, and measuring 3 ft. in length, by 2 ft. in breadth and 3 inches in thickness, on which may be inscribed the name and age of the individual interred, with the date of decease, the said stone to be laid, for uniformity, on the centre of the grave, and nearly on a level with the surface of the ground. Your Committee would recommend that no departure from this regulation, nor anything whatever of a distinctive character between one grave and another, be in any instance allowed by the Monthly Meeting, and that in all cases the expenses connected with the procuring and laying down such stones be defrayed by the parties applying for them.

Dover, 8, 9 mo., 1851. On behalf of the Committee. James Poulter.

On the report is written this note:—

4th minute of Monthly Meeting held at Dover
10th of 9th month, 1851.

The Committee appointed to consider of the best mode of carrying out the minute of the Yearly Meeting of 1850, on the subject of gravestones, brought in the following report, to which the Meeting agrees, and directs that a copy of the minute and report be sent to each Preparative Meeting, and that the same be strictly observed in 11 cases. Wm. Drewett, Clerk.

The foregoing is evidence that the Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends in 1850 made an order respecting gravestones, and that the Monthly Meeting at Dover, September, 1851, received and adopted a report making provision for the use of gravestones. It is also a fact that, although there had been a Friends' burial-place under the Town Wall at Dover from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth, there were no gravestones there; nor were there any in the Friends' burial-ground attached to their Meeting-House in Queen Street, built in 1802, until after the date of the above report, and the stones which are there now are in accordance with that report.


  1. This refers to "Mrs. Newgate Fry," as she was affectionately called by Hannah More. She died at Ramsgate, 12 Oct., 1845.
  2. Mrs. Fry's "little Betsey," who died 23 Nov. 1815.