George Jacobs Senior and the Salem Witch Trials of 1692

 

Depiction of the trial of George Jacobs Senior

Salem, Massachusetts May 1692

(The Defendant kneels before the judges in the bottom right of the painting)

Some weeks ago I posted a photograph of stocks in Hellman’s Cross, Great Canfield, Essex, which marks and commemorates the site of execution of an unfortunate resident, Elizabeth Abbott. Elizabeth was a late victim of a countrywide surge of witch-finding, meeting her terrible fate in 1683.

The post also appeared on the ‘Memories of Bishops Stortford’ Facebook page and prompted a good response with one group member pointing out that one of the victims of the most infamous series of witch trials of them all which occurred in Salem, Massachusetts, had links with Bishops Stortford. This was something that I had to look into a little more closely.

The European witchcraft hysteria had largely abated by the end of the seventeenth century, but in the recently colonized settlements of New England conditions were very favourable to ferment another outbreak of occult madness. I am sure that the whys and the wherefores of how such a calamity befell Salem and Andover in 1692 could occupy many metres of shelving in the library of the largest Faculty of Psychology but below are some of the factors that students of the Salem crisis believe came into play.

Life in the colonies was incredibly hard. The authorities had stripped holidays out of the calendar such that 300 days of every year were given over to toil. One of the few escapes from the day’s labours was given to time spent in the village Meeting House to hear sermons delivered that told of the ever present machinations of the Devil to disrupt and corrupt the community and to undo God’s will in the young colonies. In this respect, the congregation was continually warned of their weaknesses and the importance of piety and regular religious observance in order to thwart the Devil in his evil designs and to prevent Satan from gaining a foothold in the land. And this is what passed off as entertainment in seventeenth century New England! The inhabitants of the Puritan communities were all steeped to the point of saturation in the Scriptures. Religion played an enormous part in every aspect of their day to day existence.

In addition to being physically hard, life within the colonies was also fraught with danger. King Philip’s War, sometimes known at the First Indian War may have ended a decade before the trials, but the frontier areas of North New England were still subject to violent raids by the Wabanaki Indians. Settlements on the frontier were periodically razed to the ground and the inhabitants slaughtered, scalped or taken into captivity.

The Puritan communities were made up of a limited number of settler families. In Salem the records abound with references the Putnams, Proctors and Jacobs. Inter-marriage was common as was inter-family feuding. Despite the deeply held faith of these New Englanders, lawyers were rarely short of work as residents sued and counter-sued each other. Disputes over land boundaries , cattle incursions into a neighbour’s field and unpaid debts all went through the courts. Whilst it is doubted that these commonplace disputes led directly to accusations of witchcraft, the longstanding rumours and local gossip arising from ill-feeling between families did call into question the reputation of individuals and this in turn opened the door to the more dangerous suggestion of witchcraft.

The start of the trouble is not altogether clear from the records, but it was either in late February or early March 1692. A number of adolescent women began to have seizures, uncontrollable spasms and be subject to pinches, needle pricks and bites from unseen (at least to the majority) assailants. It is interesting that the average age of these ‘afflicted’ girls was 17 and that they were mostly of higher than average intelligence, meaning that they could read, if not write. It has been suggested that in these young women, raised in such an environment it is hardly the greatest leap of faith that the supernatural imps, specters and demons, through to the Devil himself to which they were exposed to from religious texts as well as from the Minister’s pulpit manifested themselves in their young minds as they did. Needless to say that some have proposed repressed sexuality, or feelings of unrequited love interest among the afflicted (along with others as because before too long it seemed that everyone was accusing someone, almost as though to accuse someone served as a greater means of self protection than to accuse noone!) as a motivation for allegations of witchcraft.

If anything a greater leap of faith would be required to understand why it was that the trial officials, several of whom were highly educated Harvard graduates were taken in by the claims and counter claims of supernatural abuses.

So what of George Jacobs Senior. At 81 he was the oldest of Salem’s victims. The circumstances that brought him to New England are lost to time. It is known that his father George Jacobs was a barber-surgeon and that his mother Priscilla was from Bishops Stortford in Hertforshire. It is recorded that George was married to his first wife on 27th June 1639 at St. Michaels Church in Bishops Stortford (a Church that is less than a five minute walk from my door). It is believed that he was christened in February 1609 at St Dunstans in the West, in London’s Fleet Street. 

Leaving the shores of England for a New England with his first wife, the first record of George Jacobs in America concerns the purchase of a property in Salem village (modern day Danvers) close to the estuary of the Waters River with ten acres of land on 20th November 1658 which the Jacobs family went on to tend. George fathered three children in Salem by his first wife, George Junior, Ann and Mary. What became of the first Mrs Jacobs is unknown, but he is known to have remarried one Mary Fetcher in Salem on 12th January 1673.

The Jacobs' house, Salem Village, 1891

The Jacobs' house in disrepair, Salem Village, 1935

George Jacobs Snr was an imposing man known to have a violent temper. He was fined for striking a man named John Tomkins Jr in 1677, and as the report has it he would have landed many more blows had he not been restrained by a witness, such was his fury.

A description of George at the time of his trial is provided by Charles W. Upham who wrote a history of the trials in 1867.

“George Jacobs, Sr, was an aged man. He is represented in the evidence as ‘very gray-headed;’ and he must have been quite infirm, for he walked with two staffs. His hair was in long, thin, white locks; and, as he was uncommonly tall of stature, he must have had a venerable aspect. Perhaps he was the ‘man in a long-crowned white hat,’ referred to by Deliverance Hobbs. The examination shows that his faculties were vigorous, his bearing fearless, and his utterances strong and decided.”

It was on 10th May 1692, three months into the supernatural commotion, that Judges John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin issued an arrest warrant for George Jacobs Senior and Junior along with his Grand-daughter, Margaret Jacobs. The arrests were made by Joseph Neale, a Salem constable on the same day. At George Snr’s first examination, again on 10th May, it became apparent that his accuser was one Sarah Churchill, his domestic servant.

Churchill confronted her employer in court stating that “Last night I was afflicted at Deacon Ingersolls, and Mary Walcot said it was a man with 2 staffs, it was my master.” Notably, Jacobs was know to walk with the assistance of two canes.

Jacobs was also accused as carrying with him the book in which the afflicted would sign over their souls for a fixed period of time to the Devil. He denied these claims of beating Sarah Churchill when in a spectral form (the court acknowledged that he was on the other side of the Waters River when the alleged assault occurred).

Upon the Magistrate urging Jacobs to confess to the charges laid out before him, George Jacobs countered with “You tax me for a wizard, you may as well tax me for a buzzard I have done no harm.”

When challenged as to how it was he that his accuser witnessed him in spectral form he stated that the Devil can assume anyone’s likeness. This was a contention that was to provoke much legal and theological discussion in the trials that followed. Could the Devil use a person for the purposes of affliction and murder without the consent of the ‘witch’ or ‘wizard’? That is to say, could someone harming someone by means of witchcraft be as innocent as the person afflicted?

His accuser went on to state that Jacobs neglected his expected obligation to pray with his family (after all how else could the Devil’s plans be defeated?). When asked to recite ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ Jacob’s stumbled over some of the words. This was considered to be a task beyond the ability of genuine witches and wizards.

At the conclusion of the hearing George Jacobs Senior uttered the prophetic words “Well burn me, or hang me, I will stand in the truth of Christ, I know nothing of it.”

Other girls testified on 10th May that George Jacobs Senior in spectral form had visited them and done them harm. This testimony from Abigail Williams survives.

At a second hearing on the following day, conducted at Beadle’s Tavern in Salem Town the afflicted girls who were present convulsed with fits and Ann Putman offered up the ‘fact’ that the specter had confessed to have been a witch for forty years.

Further into the hearing the presiding Magistrate asked whether it was he, George Jacobs’ who had created a scene at a recent Meeting House lecture on 31st March 1692. This lecture also involved prayers and fasting for the benefit of those girls afflicted with witchcraft and it is possible that the plain speaking elder Jacob spoke out against the girls at this point.

Of the two charges of witchcraft brought against him, only one was upheld, the other was dismissed for lack of evidence.

On the same day (11^th May), Margaret Jacobs, George’s Grand-daughter was also examined and according to the testimony of another witness, one Joseph Flint, she offered a confession to the fact that she was a witch. She went further accusing both her Grandfather and the Reverend George Burroughs of being witches. This was a confession that she would later sorrowfully retract.

A court order of 12^th May directed a local officer to escort George Snr and nine other accused residents to the jail in Salem Town. Two days later warrants were issued for the arrest of his son, George Junior and his daughter-in-law, Rebecca Jacobs. The latter was brought in whilst the former fled thereby evading arrest. Witness to their mother’s arrest were Rebecca’s four young children who followed the cart that carried her away as far as their young legs could take them before they were taken in by neighbours.

Both Rebecca and her daughter Margaret languished in jail for a full eight months before their trial and acquittal in January 1693. In this time, Margaret had recanted her earlier confession stating that she only confessed upon being told that to do so was the only means by which her life would be spared.

The retraction of her confession survives in the records and is worth presenting in full as it sheds significant light upon the atmosphere that prevailed in Massachusetts at the time of the trials:

“The humble declaration of Margaret Jacobs unto the honoured court now sitting at Salem, sheweth That whereas your poor and humble declarant being closely confined here in Salem goal for the crime of witchcraft, which crime thanks be to the Lord I am altogether ignorant of, as will appear at the great day of judgment: May it please the honoured court, I was cried out upon by some of the possessed persons, as afflicting them; whereupon I was brought to my examination, which persons at the sight of me fell down, which did very much startle and affright me. The Lord above knows I knew nothing, in the least measure, how or who afflicted them; they told me, without doubt I did, or else they would not fall down at me; they told me, if I would not confess, I should be put down into the dungeon and would be hanged, but if I would confess I should have my life; the which did so affright me, with my own vile wicked heart, to save my life; made me make the like confession I did, which confession, may it please the honoured court, is altogether false and untrue. The very first night after I had made confession, I was in such horror of conscience that I could not sleep for fear the devil should carry me away for telling such horrid lies. I was, may it please the honoured court, sworn to my confession, as I understand since, but then, at that time, was ignorant of it, not knowing what an oath did mean. The Lord, I hope, in whom I trust, out of the abundance of his mercy, will forgive me my false forswearing myself. What I said, was altogether false against my grandfather, and Mr. Burroughs , which I did to save my life and to have my liberty; but the Lord, charging it to my conscience, made me in so much horror, that I could not contain myself before I had denied my confession, which I did though I saw nothing but death before me, chusing rather death with a quiet conscience, than to live in such horror, which I could not suffer. Where, upon my denying my confession, I was committed to close prison, where I have enjoyed more felicity in spirit, a thousand times, than I did before in my enlargement. And now, may it please your honours, your declarant, having, in part, given your honours a description of my condition, do leave it to your honours pious and judicious discretions, to take pity and compassion on my young and tender years, to act and do with me, as the Lord above and your honours shall see good, having no friend, but the Lord, to plead my cause for me; not being guilty in the least measure of the crime of witchcraft, nor any other sin that deserves death from man; and your poor and humble declarant shall for ever pray, as she is bound in duty, for your honours happiness in this life and eternal felicity in the world to come. So prays your honours declarant.

Margaret Jacobs.”

The trial of George Jacobs Senior began in the first week of August 1692 and on the 4^th a George Herrick testified that in May he had travelled to Salem Jail in order to conduct a physical examination of Jacobs in the presence of constable Joseph Neale (the arresting officer) and the jail keeper, William Dounton. The purpose of the examination was to identify any ‘witch marks’ on the prisoner’s body, physical attributes known to be possessed by witches and wizards, the functions of which were to allow their ‘familiars’ to suckle…. all quite obvious really. Lo and behold, one such mark was observed on George’s right shoulder. Described as about a quarter of an inch long with a sharp point that pointed downwards, this physical anomaly was described unsurprisingly as a teat…. Yet more proof of this unfortunates guilt, as I am sure you would agree. Those of rationale mind could challenge this proof of ‘collusion with the Devil’ with the fact that by the time that a human frame had reached the ripe old age of 81 (and this was in 1692 when such longevity was rather remarkable in itself!) the absence of warts, skin tags, growths and the like would be a greater indicator of supernatural interference than otherwise! Nevertheless the nature and purpose of George’s displaced tit was confirmed by the needle test i.e. when pierced it did not bleed. The case against poor, unfortunate George Jacobs was almost wrapped up.

George Jacobs Senior was convicted on the grounds of his mark and spectral evidence alone. The admission of spectral evidence in court was, along with the debate as to whether the Devil could use a person’s spectral form without their express permission, a hot topic that was much debated both during and after the trials. In fact it was the legal opinion that deemed that spectral evidence was admissible in court in the trial of two convicted witches in Lowestoft in Suffolk that validated George Jacobs’ one way passage to the gallows.

The trial that occurred on 5th August was short, George was found guilty on one charge of witchcraft and sentenced to death by hanging. The date of execution was set as 19th August and he would be joined on the gallows by John Proctor, Reverend George Burrows, Martha Carrier and John Willard. All five protested their innocence until their final moments.

On the morning the 19^th the five condemned prisoners were taken by cart from the jail in Salem Town to Gallows Hill on Proctor’s Ledge for the death sentence to be fulfilled. In full view of an illustrious throng that included Cotton Mather, a big hitting figure in New England politics with a big hand in the conduct of the trials at Salem.

George Jacobs Senior was the last of the prisoners to be pushed off the gallows platform into the abyss.

Once dead, the prisoners were cut down and allegedly dragged by their nooses to shallow graves that had been dug close by.

Memorial at the Proctor's Ledge execution site.

Legend has it that Jacobs’ body was reclaimed from the execution site, undercover of night and reburied at the family’s property.

Support for this outcome comes from the discovery of human remains in the nineteenth century on the former Jacobs property. Once again according to Charles Upham:

“The tradition has descended through the family, that the body, after having been obtained at the place of execution, was strapped by a young grandson on the back of a horse, brought home to the farm, and buried beneath the shade of his own trees. Two sunken and weather-worn stones marked the spot. There the remains rested until 1864, when they were exhumed. They were enclosed again, and reverently redeposited in the same place. The skull was in a state of considerable preservation. An examination of the jawbones showed that he was a very old man at the time of his death., and had previously lost all his teeth. The length of some parts of the skeleton showed that he was a very tall man. These circumstances corresponded with the evidence, which was that he was tall of stature; so infirm as to walk with two staffs; with long, flowing white hair. The only article found, except the bones, was a metallic pin, which might have been used as a breastpin, or to hold together his aged locks.”

George’s remains suffered further indignity when disturbed by a bulldozer's bucket in the 1950’s when the site was redeveloped. After a period in storage the remains were buried for a third time in 1992 on the Rebecca Nurse (another hanged victim of Salem) Farm. The remains were put into the earth in a replica seventeenth century coffin and the site marked with a headstone typical of his day.

As reported in the recent 2014 publication by Emerson W. Baker entitled ‘A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience’.

“In 1992 Danvers also endorsed another modest act of reconciliation. There was a tradition in the Jacobs family that George Jacob’s body had been taken from Gallows Hill after his death and buried on his farm, which is located within the town’s borders. A skeleton exhumed and then reburied on the farm in the mid-nineteenth century was believed to be his, and this skeleton was rediscovered by a bulldozer when the property was developed in the 1950s. Safeguarded for years by Danvers officials, the skeleton was quietly reburied on the Rebecca Nurse farm, complete with replica seventeenth-century coffin and gravestone, in 1992. Although analysis of the remains established that they were those of an old man and generally fit Jacob’s description, it will never know whether they really were those of Jacobs. However, it was still an important and sincere gesture.”

In the years that followed the Salem tragedy, the events of 1692 were hushed up. In the immediate aftermath, the proceedings the court sessions, although not the judges, were called into question. Eventually over a long period of time, acceptance of the fact that 20 innocents (19 by hanging and one by pressing) had perished came. Salem remains to be an embarrassment to the American nation and a warning as to how legal proceedings can escalate out of control.

Today, amends have been made to the victims of 1692. Memorials to George and his fellow victims have been raised in several locations connected with the trials, including the execution site at Proctor’s Ledge and at the new site of his grave in the Rebecca Nurse Homestead family cemetery.

George Jacobs Senior's 1992 headstone at the Rebecca Nurse Farm site that bears his words to the court

"Well burn me, or hang me, I will stand in the truth of Christ, I know nothing of it."

Salem and Danvers seem also to be more accepting of the areas dark and perplexing history and even the police department patrol cars carry a witch on a broomstick motif across their doors!

May the last word go to George’s strickened Grand-daughter, Margeret, who wrote to her father on the day of George’s execution:

“The reason of my confinement is this, I having, through the Magistrates threatenings, and my own vile and wretched heart, confessed several things contrary to my conscience and knowledge, though to the wounding of my own soul, the Lord pardon me for it; but Oh! the terrors of a wounded conscience who can bear…”

It would appear that news of Margaret’s retraction of her confession reached George as he amended his Last Will and Testament to award his Grand-daughter an additional £10 in silver, although after his death, the court did not honour his amendments and besides, most of his possesions had been claimed by Judge Corwin and his men even before Jacobs' sentence was carried out.

The George Jacobs stone at the Salem Witch Trials Memorial in Salem Town.

 

 

Lieutenant Jack Southard Watney 11th Battalion Imperial Yeomanry Killed In Action at Tweefontein South Africa on Christmas Day 1901

 

Portrait of the soldier featured in the 11th January edition of 'The Graphic'

Saturday afternoon on 13th February 2021 and the weather is bitterly cold as the weather front dubbed ‘The Beast From The East 2’ delivers its last blasts of cold air. However, the sun is out and the brightness makes the temperature much more bearable. Having been housebound for much of the week, for work rather than health reasons, I decided that I must make an effort and get some exercise that would get both my good and bad knee moving.

I had been told that the the lychgate of St Mary the Virgin in Birchanger, a village just outside of Bishops Stortford, bore the green and white plaque that indicates that the churchyard contains Commonwealth War Grave Commission plots and this was reason enough for me to head off in that direction.

There is a war memorial to the men of the parish who fell in the two world wars but I could find no individual soldiers graves. I will look again at some point soon. Crunching my way across the frozen earth that was doing its level best to hold on to the snow that fell at the beginning of the week, I entered an area of the graveyard that had seemingly in the past been sectioned off by the planting of trees. These served to create natural sanctum almost, screened away from the rest of the churchyard. A look at the headstones close by indicated that this would indeed have been intentional as within this shielded green space were the plots of various members of the Gold family, prominent local people, including Sir Charles Gold, the onetime Liberal MP for Saffron Walden and Walter Gilby’s (he of the alcoholic beverage fame) brother-in-law.

Close by the title heavy headstone of Charles Gold, Knight Batchelor, is a small unassuming memorial headstone, the lettering of which although badly worn can still be read.

‘TO THE MEMORY OF

JACK SOUTHARD WATNEY

AGED 19 YEARS

LIEUT. 11TH BAT. IMP. YEOMANRY

WHO WAS KILLED WHILST LEADING

A CHARGE AT TWEEFONTEIN S. AFRICA

ON DEC. 25TH 1901

AND WAS BURIED THERE.

----

THIS STONE IS ERECTED BY HIS

GRANDPARENTS SIR CHARLES GOLD

AND FANNY GEORGINA, HIS WIFE.’

So I had found a war grave after all, not of the First and Second World Wars but of the Boer War, or as  more correctly stated the Second Boer War. The origins of the war reached back right across the duration of the 19th century. Originating from the Cape of Good Hope, the Boers were farmer frontiersmen who on becoming dissatisfied with the way in which the British were administering things down in the Cape, moved on mass, firstly to Natal and then inland where they established two independent Boer republics, namely the South African Republic (otherwise known as the Transvaal Republic) and the Orange Free State, both of which the British recognized. The problems really started up again when it became apparent that these new republics harboured great riches in the form of diamonds and gold. The subsequent ‘rushes’ brought in a great influx of non-Boers, or uitlanders (foreigners) seeking their fortunes. Such was this in pouring of uitlanders, many of them British, that the Boers feared that their ethnic majority in the areas would be lost. At the same time, the UK Government, looking out for the interests of the newly arrived British in the area and the wealth that they may generate for the homeland, demanded voting rights and representation for the uitlanders of the Transvaal. A diplomatic crisis rapidly developed, such that when the British ignored an ultimatum from the President of the South African Republic to withdraw troops from the borders of both Boer republics, the two states declared war on Britain on 11th October 1899.

The war lasted nearly two and a half years with the death of Lieutenant Watney occurring in the last months of the war at a time when the Boer commandoes were fighting a series guerilla actions against the British forces, now present in great number. The Boers finally surrendered in the face of deployment of a scorched earth policy that destroyed their farmland and incarcerated civilians in concentration camps where many thousand succumbed to starvation and disease.

One such guerilla raid on Colonel Firman’s Brigade was led by the Boer commando of Christiaan de Wet. The Brigade were deployed in the construction of a series of blockhouse fortifications over the 50 mile distance between Bethlehem and Harrismith (shown on the map). These blockhouses connected with barbed wire stretched across large areas of the veldt (the grassland plains) were intended to restrict the movements of the Boer fighters such that the British forces could systematically eliminate them.  At Christmas 1901, the Brigade were camped the reverse slopes of the Groenkop, a small hill on an otherwise flat plain.

A surviving blockhouse of the Second Boer war

At 2 am on the morning of the 25th, de Wet’s fighters removed their boots and scaled the steep southern slopes of the hill. This ascent was made with bootless feet to achieve a silent approach. On reaching the crest, the element of surprise was complete and with the piquet sentries quickly overcome, the Boers poured rifle fire into the British tents of the camp. Savage fighting ensued for the next forty minutes or so during which the Brigade force of approximately 600 men, of which 550 were men of Jack's battalion, the 11th Imperial Yeomanry. In command of the Battalion’s machine gun section, Lieutenant Watney took a lead in the fighting, but the British troops were heavily outnumbered, with the Boer attacking force estimated to be around 1,200 men. Of the men of the 11th, 68 soldiers were killed and 77 were wounded in what amounted to a near massacre. Among those killed were the Battalion commander, Major Williams and Jack. Those taken prisoner were released the following day, but only after they were stripped to an almost naked state by the Boer fighters, so desperate for clothing it seems that some were wearing ‘ladies apparel’.

Contemporary reports of the fighting featured in many newspapers in the UK, the successes enjoyed and indeed the calamities endured by the British Army were read with keen interest by a public buoyed by Empire stories. Earlier in the war, the relief of the garrison town of Mafeking was a cause for great celebration in Britain’s streets.

A depiction of the fighting from a Paris Journal of 1902

Freeman’s Exmouth Journal
4th January 1902

Lord Kitchener on Sunday morning telegraphed from Johannesburg that the prisoners in De Wet’s attack on Colonel Firman’s camp on Christmas morning have been released, and have arrived in Bethlehem. In a previous message he has sent some details of the mishap. The column was encamped on the slope of a solitary kopje, the southern side of which was almost precipitous. Up that side the Boers crept and collected near the top.

At two in the morning they suddenly attacked the piquets on the summit, and before the men could get clear of their tents the Boers rushed through, shooting them down as they came out. There was no panic, and all did their best, but the enemy, who apparently numbered 1200, were too strong, and once the piquet was overwhelmed they had all the advantage. The casualty list shows that six officers and 50 men were killed, including Major G. A. Williams, who, in Colonel Firman’s absence, was in command; eight officers were wounded, and four others were missing.

Two officers who were in the camp after the fight, state that dead Boers were lying all over the ground at daylight, and two wagon-loads of dead and wounded Boers, mostly hit in the first attack on the piquets, were taken away.

On the news of the reverse reaching Elands River Bridge, 14 miles distant, the Imperial Light Horse hastened to the scene, which was reached at 40 minutes past 6, and afterwards galloped after the Boers, without overtaking them. When the enemy reached Langburg, Lord Kitchener adds, the Imperial Light Horse could do nothing more against superior numbers in such a country.

THE FIGHT AT TWEEFONTEIN

The strength of the Tweefontein garrison so disastrously surprised by the fighting burghers under De Wet at Christmas, must from a careful collection of accounts have been about 500 against 1200 Boers. The reverse was the result of a sudden concentration of commandos under General De Wet.

General De Wet’s concentration of between 1500 and 1200 men in the north-east of Orange Colony has (according to a dispatch from Mr. Edgar Wallace, the Daily Mail war correspondent at Pretoria) been known for some time. These remnants of the best fighting blood of the old Free State, under dashing leaders, have been hovering about our small mobile columns operating from Harrismith and Heilbron, waiting for an opportunity to attack, while General De Wet himself, with 800 men, remained in the vicinity of Tafelkop and Ritz, ready to throw his support whenever it was required. Colonel Damant’s and General Dartnell’s fights were the result of this policy, but the columns made up for their attenuated condition by extreme mobility and caution under clever and tried leaders able to inflict severe punishment on the enemy. The last incident near Harrismith seems, however, to have been altogether in favour of the enemy. It shows the completeness of their intelligence service and their ability to suddenly concentrate. It appears to be time (sapiently says Mr. Edgar Wallace) that the system of moving bases was extended to all the mobile columns, leaving the best mounted men at liberty to make raids unencumbered by transport, thus creating troops as mobile as the enemy and a hundred times more dangerous.

Lieutenant Jack Southard Watney, 11^th Battalion Imperial Yeomanry, who was killed while leading the charge at Tweefontein, was 19 years of age, and educated at Eton. Joining the Honourable Artillery Company in 1899, he went out to South Africa in February of last year with a draft from that company. At the time of his death he was in command of the Maxim gun attached to the 11^th Battalion of the Imperial Yeomanry.

Tweefontein is situated in a mountainous country about equidistant from Bethlehem and Harrismith, which are some 60 miles apart. At no great distance to the south-west lies the Brandwater Basin, where De Wet was nearly cornered by General Rundle some 15 months ago, and away to the north – 50 miles or so- is Tafelkop, the scene of Colonel Damant’s severe engagement on December 20.

Of the man responsible for the planning of this guerilla raid, General Christiaan De Wet, the press are remarkably complementary!

Since the caging of Cronje and the death of Joubert the most considerable personality amongst those arrayed in South Africa against the might of Britain has undoubtedly been that of the marvelously mobile Christiaan De Wet – despite the superior fighting rank of Botha, the Commandant-General of the Boer forces.

Within an hour after the telegraph wires of the Transvaal flashed the word “oorlag,” meaning “war,” in October 1899, Christiaan De Wet had dropped his spade in the dam he was building on his farm and was riding across the veldt to go to battle. He knew little of the actuality of fighting then, but to-day he has the record of harassing the British Army as it has never been worried before. He has made dashing raids, time after time, and has attacked with fury forces five times as large as his own.

Cool, fearless, resourceful, a master in strategy and mobilising, for many months he was never surprised. When all odds were against him, he eluded Kitchener; he cut off Lord Robert’s communications by railway and telegraph; he slipped through Hamilton’s fingers in most irritating fashion and he outwitted Methuen by his so-called “Mosquito” tactics. This rough, untrained farmer has been the cause of many of the unfavourable telegrams sent by British Generals to the War Office. His tactics have received high praise from military experts, and he has been largely responsible for prolonging what has proved the campaign.

General De Wet is about forty years of age, of medium height, slight in build, with a sharp face, dark Moustache, and rough beard tinging slightly with grey, and a firm mouth, expressive of the dauntless determination which is one of the alert Boer guerilla leader’s strongest points.

Here's what he really looked like.

General Christiaan De Wet

A memorial to the British dead from that Christmas Day 1901 stands at the camp site at the Tweefontein farm and Lieutenant J.S. Watney is commemorated on one of the panels.

Memorial to the British Dead of the Battle of Groenkop

Tweefontein Farm, South Africa

Monument panel remembering Lieut J. S. Watney

Machine Gun Section, 11th Btn. Imperial Yeomanry

A memorial service was conducted by the Rev. W. H. Cain at St. Mary the Virgin Church in Birchanger on 4th January 1902.

Essex County Chronicle 10th January 1902

Jack is commemorated on further plaques and memorials raised to the memory of those that fell in the Second Boer War at The Mercer's Chapel in the City of London, one of the City's ancient Livery Companies (December 1902) and at St Paul's School in Hammersmith (April 1906).

Finally, the small worn memorial, almost overlooked yesterday in Birchanger was set into the ground in the the graveyard of St Mary's by Jack's grandparents.

The mortal remains of Jacks grandparent's lie close by, Charles buried in 1924 having been preceded  by Fanny who was committed to the Essex earth in 1910.

Sir Grandad

Lady Grandma

So, something of a diversion from the trenches I suppose. All wars are controversial and the Boer War is no exception, a war fought for land, influence and riches (so no different to most conflicts then in those respects). This war did though introduce elements of warfare that would become only too familiar in a very short period of time... the suffering of civilians, be it through a scorched earth policy or through internment within concentration camps. 

Nevertheless, even though I say this as a non-military person, the hard experience of warfare that ended Jack Watney's life would not be so far removed from the Tommy in a wet trench in the Western Front or my own Grandfather's in a flooded Holland in 1945. 

A life taken at 19 is a tragedy irrespective of the context or century.   

The Old Cemetery, Bishops Stortford in the Snow, February 2021

 

They dubbed it the 'Beast from the East 2'. From memory what we have experienced today has not been a patch on what we experienced here on the edge of East Anglia a few years ago with 'Beast #1'. Nevertheless, adamant this morning to partake in at least a modicum of lockdown exercise, I made for the cemetery as before. Admittedly, with an wind chill from the easterly blast estimated to bring the wind chill factored temperature down to -5°C to -8°C my resolve was short lived and within 20 or so minutes I was once again heading through the wooden gates in the direction of modern central heating!

The scenes within the cemetery walls were stunning and I cannot for one minute claim to do them justice, but I think what I managed really brings home the point that I made in an earlier post that the seasons really do have such a dramatic impact upon the nature and dramatic beauty of a graveyard.

And would you believe it, that wing-ed woman is here once again!

The Angel in the Old Cemetery

 

The Laugher Monument

Bishops Stortford Old Cemetery

9th January 2021

It is 9.05 a.m. on Sunday 24th January 2021. Unusually, I am still in bed. Generally, I am an early riser, especially on a Saturday or Sunday when I am reluctant to lose any precious weekend hours. But weekends are very different now and as I lie here the measured tones of the Radio 4 newsreader convey mostly bad news, predictions of extended restrictions and vaccine production issues. For the coming months it seems that we will need to exist in a No Man’s Land between injection and infection. So be it, we must all do what we need to do, follow the rules and conquer COVID-19. But how to fill those long free hours under lockdown restrictions. The answer, or at least my answer……..make for the cemetery, after all where else can you social distance in three dimensions!

A couple of weeks ago on an early morning excursion into Bishops Stortford Old Cemetery, I took a photograph of an angel. After playing with some of the filters that iphone have to offer I posted the moody shot on Facebook and it was well received, looking like it does as a cover of a lost Joy Division album. On this Sunday morning, I decided to pay her another visit.

One thing that I always notice about aged cemeteries is the wonderful way in which they change with the weather. Take the shelved Joy Division photo for example. The fog was such that the expanse of the cemetery seemed much reduced as all but those stones within 15 metres or so of where you were standing were indistinct to unseen. The angel was also slow to reveal herself as I approached and only up close was the detail of the sculpture visible with any clarity. This morning was very different. My weather app told me that it was 0°C and the ground frost under my Dr Marten’s confirmed what I didn’t really need a Smartphone to tell me!

Bishops Stortford Old Cemetery

24th January 2021

The greatest contrast to the white tipped grass was the profusion of greens on show in this old graveyard. From the shades offered by the mix of deciduous and evergreen trees to the various lichens that almost illuminate the monuments. The mottling revealed on the angel’s robes is beautiful (at least to my eyes) but unfortunately beyond my limited photographic skills.

Clearly this angelic statue has for some reason resonated with me, so it seemed quite natural to see whether I could glean any further information on the names adorning three out of four faces of the plinth. The proud Victorians in whose eternal memory this monument was raised must have a story to tell.

The clarity of the inscriptions is varied and several of the lead letters have been lost, but all dedications can be fully deciphered.

Front face:

HERE BURIED

BENEATH THIS STONE

LIE THE MORTAL REMAINS OF

HENRY LAUGHER

OF THIS TOWN

WHO ENTERED HIS HEAVENLY REST

1927 IN THE 81ST YEAR OF HIS AGE

LEAVING FIVE SOROWING SISTERS 

AND ONE GRANDSON

WHO MOURN HIS LOSS

Right face:

ALSO

HIS BELOVED WIFE

SOPHIA ELIZABETH

DAUGHTER OF

JAMES AMOS AND HANNAH ASHWELL

WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE

MARCH 16 –1899 AGED 60 YEARS

____________

“TO FALL ASLEEP IS NOT TO DIE

TO DWELL WITH CHRIST IS BETTER LIFE”

Left face:

IN LOVING MEMORY

OF

FREDERICK JOHN MURRELL

WESLEYAN MINISTER

WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE NOV 20 – 1920

AGED 63 YEARS

AND WAS BURIED AT BRIXHAM DEVON

ALSO OF HIS BELOVED WIFE

FLORENCE ASHWELL

ONLY DAUGHTER OF

HENRY AND SOPHIA ELIZABETH LAUGHER

WHO FELL ASLEEP

DEC 6 – 1926 AGED 53 YEARS

“IN MY FATHER’S HOUSE ARE MANY MANSIONS” ST JOHN XIV.2

Beyond the tachophilic appeal of the monument, I was curious about what lay beyond the lead lettering.

It would only be right and respectful to start this inquiry with Mr Henry Laugher, the man ultimately responsible for the raising of such an impressive memorial to his extended family.

Henry Laugher was born in Studley in Warwickshire in 1847. I am picking up what I can of his story from the 1881 census onwards where Henry is recorded as the head of the household at 125 Market Square, Bishops Stortford. At that time he was listed as a merchant tailor employing two clothiers assistants and a general servant. Ten years later his residence is recorded as 36 Potter Street where, at the age of 44, he is a clothier and outfitter married to Sophia Elizabeth Laugher (neé Ashwell) eight years his senior. The couple wed in 1872. The property is shared with their 17 year old daughter, Florence, a Bishops Stortford born girl who features later in this narrative, two boarders employed to assist in Henry’s shop and again a general servant.

Henry’ wife Sophia Elizabeth Ashwell was born in Eaton Bray in Bedfordshire in 1839. She first appears in the 1841 census as the third child to her farming parents, James Amos and Hannah Ashwell, both of whom were 25 years old at the time that the census was taken.

It is evident from the 1851 census that Mr and Mrs Ashwell took pleasure in each other’s company as the family was much expanded within the passing of the decade. James and Hannah were the parents of Louis (15), Prisella (13), Hannah (10), Thomas (8), Alfred (5), Jeffrey (1) and Leanora (4 months). Sophia was absent from this list as on the day of the census she was visiting 71 year old Elizabeth Ashwell also of Eaton Bray, who I am guessing (without checking) to be her paternal Grandmother.  

The 1851 census reveals that James Amos was a farmer responsible for 120 acres with 10 labourers in his employ. At some point between 1851 and 1855, James upped sticks and relocated his large family from Bedfordshire to Bishops Stortford where he took up a position as a farmer of Bishops/Stortford Park Farm, located on the Great Hadham Road. His prospects had improved it seems as he was now managing a significantly increased acreage of 306 acres with an increase in farm hands as well. 

So, it is clear that Henry was an established local retailer and businessman. In addition, Henry, Sophia and their son-in-law to be, Mr. F. J. Murrell were stalwarts of the Methodist (Wesleyan) community. Their charitable activities within the Church were regularly reported in the local press. Henry himself was an occasional Minister. Whilst Sophia’s name was often repeated in the Bishops Stortford news column in our regional newspapers as the genial host of Wesleyan charitable events. These were strictly tea rather than wine evenings unfortunately.  Henry crops up from time to time in his own right. Occasional shop-listing accounts from his Potter Street premises made it into the news and invariably resulted in a sentence of hard labour for the convicted thief! Several column inches in the first months 1894 were taken up with the Collis vs Laugher court case. John Collis, a draper, operated out of the premises adjacent to Henry’s tailors shop. Mr Collis contended that Henry had willfully erected obstructions to ‘ancient lights’ on the premise owned by Mr Collis. Sadly, in the records I cannot see whom the court ultimately ruled in favour of.

On a more personal level, 21st April 1923 the Essex Newsman reported a serious accident that befell Henry late in life.

“TRADESMAN’S SERIOUS ACCIDENT – Mr. Henry Laugher, of the Clothing Hall, Potter Street, is lying in a serious condition as a result of a fall. He was standing at the top of a flight of steps leading into the garden, when the railing gave way, and he fell nearly 20 feet. He sustained a broken leg and collarbone, and a fracture of the skull. Mr. Laugher who is 75 years of age and one of the oldest tradesmen, is a prominent Wesleyan and a local preacher.”

Remarkably, Henry was still working at the age of 75, but the impact of this traumatic accident upon Henry can only be guessed at, as the only later mention of him in the press is a report of his funeral, as reported in the Chelmsford Chronicle of 30th December 1927.

“THE FUNERAL of Mr. Henry Laugher, clothier, Potter Street, one of Stortford’s oldest traders, who died in his 81st year, took place on Friday in the Cemetery, after a service in the Wesleyan Chapel. The Rev. P. Porri officiated. There was a wreath from the officers and members of the Wesleyan Chapel, to which Mr. Laugher had been a great benefactor.”

Henry’s wife Sophie had died many year’s before in 1899. Originally reported in the the Essex Newsman, I found a correction piece in their edition of 8th April 1899.

“CORRECTION – It was stated in a paragraph which recently appeared in this paper that the deaths had recently occurred of two sisters – Mrs. Henry Laugher, of Potter Street, and Mrs. Parkes of Carlton Cottage, Apton Road. The statement was true as far as Mrs. Laugher is concerned but we are happy to be informed that Mrs. Parkes is still alive. We regret the pain which the mistaken announcement must have caused to the relatives of Mrs. Parkes.”

Mrs. Parkes was Sophia’s older sister, Prisella, who was alive and well for a few years yet in Apton Road, the road in which I live.

Having looked into the pious and temperate lives of the Laugher’s of Bishops Stortford, I turned my attention to the man commemorated on the left hand side face of the plinth. What I discovered was quite shocking and tragic.

Mr. Frederick John Murrell was Wesleyan Minister in the town. His name usually appeared in the local press alongside that of Sophia’s in connection with charitable events organised by the Church. Sophia was the lady who was to become his mother-in-law, for it would seem that Fred had designs on the Laugher’s only daughter, Florence. 

As a well-respected minister of the Church he was an established preacher on the Wesleyan circuit across the South East and South West of England in the first 20 years of the 20th century. Reports of his death in November 1920 in the highly syndicated press of the day remembered him as a well-received circuit minister in both the Kettering area from 1912, where he acted as a Non-conformist chaplain to troops during the Great War, and in the Canterbury area during and in the immediate aftermath of the First World War.

In July 1919, Frederick took up ministry in the Dartmouth and Brixham area and here his life appeared to unravel. 

In early July 1919, changes to the Wesleyan ministerial circuit, as decided at the Wesleyan Methodist Conference in Hull were published in the press. Thus was Frederick’s ministry in the Brixham and Dartmouth area announced. Early reports of his engagement with his new West Country parishioners included his involvement in the celebration of the 108th anniversary of the Penryn Wesleyan Sunday School.

However, Frederick’s ministerial activities in the area appear to have ceased in August 1919 subsequent to some manner of nervous breakdown.

The tragedy that shortly after befell the small Murrell family is most fully described in the coroner’s inquest report that was published in the Western Morning News of 23rd November 1920.

A painful tragedy, which has caused a deep sensation in Brixham and Dartmouth, was investigated by Mr. Sidney Hacker, coroner, yesterday when he conducted an enquiry concerning the death on Saturday night of Rev. Fredk J. Murrell, superintendent of the Dartmouth and Brixham Wesleyan Circuit. 

Deceased was in Canterbury during the war, and came to Brixham last year. Owing largely to his strenuous work in the large camps around Canterbury, his health was much impoverished, and he had been under the medical care of Dr. Falconer for some time.

FOUND BY HIS SON

Deceased’s son, Henry Murrell age 17, said he left his father’s room at 8.30 p.m. on Saturday for supper. Returning there, he found his father on the bed, bleeding. He screamed for his mother, who came and took a razor from his father’s hand and sent witness for Dr. Falconer. 

Mrs, Murrell said deceased came to Brixham in September 1919, as superintendent minister. Latterly he had been in failing health, and the last time he did duty was during the first week of August last. He had an idea that he was not going to recover. A short time ago he asked her to take his razor out of his room, and she did so, giving it back to him only when he required it for shaving. When she heard her son scream, she ran upstairs and found her husband kneeling or sitting with his head over the bed bleeding. She took a razor from him and heard him whisper, “I cannot die”. She was very much frightened, and screamed for her son to fetch Dr. Falconer.

HIGHLY STRUNG MAN

Dr. Falconer stated that when he arrived at the manse he found the deceased lying on the bedroom floor with his throat cut. He was still alive, and just able to whisper. Witness tried to get him into bed, but could not manage it single-handed and, as it would have caused him extreme pain, he attended him on the floor. Having made the deceased as comfortable as he could, he asked “Why did you do this?” Deceased whispered: “It has been in my mind all day.” Witness was convinced deceased would not have committed the act if he had been in his right mind. He was a nervous, highly-strung man.

CORONER’S REMARKS

The Coroner recalled Mrs Murrell and her son. – Replying to him, Mrs. Murrell said that when her son went for the doctor, no one else was left in the house. She remained in the bedroom, some while, and after her husband had fallen on the floor she waited outside the door until the doctor came. Both she and her son were afraid to go into the room.

The Coroner: Then you left your husband on the floor bleeding to death. You did not staunch the wound, but waited outside the door with your husband a dying man.

Witness: I waited outside until the doctor came.

Mrs. Murrell here broke down in grief and was not asked further questions.

The son, recalled, also said he and his mother were afraid to go into the room, he put a piece of rope on the handle of the door as he was afraid to open it and afraid of what his father would do in such a condition, and he personally did not know what to do.

The Coroner recorded a verdict that the deceased committed suicide while of unsound mind. He said he was not pleased with the evidence given by the son, who should have played a more manly part and not left his father bleeding to death."

Frederick’s funeral was reported in the Western Morning News edition of Saturday 27th November 1920.

"FUNERAL OF REV. F.J. MURRELL

The funeral of Rev. F.J. Murrell, superintendent minister of Brixham and Dartmouth Wesleyan Circuit, was at Brixham on Thursday. At a service in Brixham Wesleyan Chapel Rev. W.A. Chettle, Chairman of the Plymouth and Devonport District, spoke of Mr. Murrell’s faithful service, his zeal and enthusiasm. "

Frederick lies in the churchyard of St Mary's in Brixham.

At some point after the death of her husband, Florence returned with their son, Henry, to Bishops Stortford, where in December 1926 she passed away when living at 40 Grange Road in the town. Her estate was passed on to Henry who was working as an outfitter’s assistant, presumably to his Grandfather.

This then is very fragmented story of three families united in faith and the teachings of John Wesley, families who seemed to have devoted a large part of their lives to those less fortunate than themselves in Bishops Stortford and beyond. And yet, their family history is touched by tragedy. 

For me this is part of the appeal of cemeteries, that even after the passage of a century or more, if you look behind the inscriptions, you can be part of a drama unfolding. Real people, with real people’s loves and losses, triumphs and tragedies.

And what of Frederick Murrell, a devout man who took his own life, an action in contravention of both his deep held religions convictions and the law of the land at that time. The deed of suicide, or of self-murder, as it was often termed by religious organisations was illegal until The Suicide Act of 1961 decriminalised the taking of one’s own life under English Law. This being the case, makes what Frederick did all the more desperate.

As a prolific preacher of the Wesleyan message, Frederick may well have been familiar with founder John Wesley’s uncompromising position on the ‘act of self-murder.

In a letter dated 8th April 1790, Wesley committed his thoughts on suicide to paper.

“It is a melancholy consideration, that there is no country in Europe, or perhaps in the habitable world, where the horrid crime of self-murder is so common as it is in England!  One reason of this may be, that the English in general are more ungodly and more impatient than other nations.  Indeed we have laws against it, and officers with juries are appointed to inquire into every fact of the kind.  And these are to give in their verdict upon oath, whether the self-murderer was sane or insane.  If he is brought in insane, he is excused, and the law does not affect him.  By this means it is totally eluded; for the juries constantly bring him in insane.  So the law is not of the least effect, though the farce of a trial still continues.

This morning I asked a Coroner, “Sir, did you ever know a jury bring in the deceased felo de se?”  He answered, “No, Sir; and it is a pity they should.”  What then is the law good for?  If all self-murderers are mad, what need of any trial concerning them?

But it is plain our ancestors did not think so, or those laws had never been made.  It is true, every self-murderer is mad in some sense, but not in that sense which the law intends.  This fact does not prove him mad in the eye of the law: The question is, Was he mad in other respects?  If not, every juror is perjured who does not bring him in felo de se.

But how can this vile abuse of the law be prevented, and this execrable crime effectually discouraged?

By a very easy method.  We read in ancient history, that, at a certain period, many of the women in Sparta murdered themselves.  This fury increasing, a law was made, that the body of every woman that killed herself should be exposed naked in the streets.  The fury ceased at once.

Only let a law be made and rigorously executed, that the body of every self-murderer, Lord or peasant, shall be hanged in chains, and the English fury will cease at once.

Liverpool,  April 8, 1790.                                                                 JOHN WESLEY."

Indeed, the Coroner’s verdict in Frederick inquest recorded that ‘the deceased committed suicide while of unsound mind’. In arriving at this verdict, the dead man was cleared of committing a crime and the inheritance could pass down to his surviving relatives. So, in this respect Wesley had a point when stating that suicide as a crime on the statute book was a poor deterrent of ‘the English fury’.

Was Frederick always a ‘nervous, highly-strung man’, or had his experiences as a chaplain to the troops in the UK during The Great War contributed to his mental instability, culminating in a nervous breakdown in August 1919 that ended his ministering. I guess we shall never know.

Finally, I read the Coroner’s closing statements from the inquest with interest. It is true that the behaviour of Henry and Florence whilst waiting for the arrival of Dr Falconer was rather unusual. Tying a door shut out of fear of what a man, who was lying on the bedroom floor with his life ebbing away, may do, would probably not be my first reaction to the situation. Then again, what 17 year old teenager would be equipped to deal with such a terrible and shocking scene in the more ‘manly’ manner expected from the Coroner. The situation may have been different had Henry been a few years older, a veteran of the threnches perhaps and one hardened to the sight of blood and horrific injury. The calamity for the family echoes down the years when reading the inquest account.

There is no doubt that from now on when on my frequent forays into the Old Cemetery I will regard that angel and the names associated with her a little differently than before.

A Morning Spent In Paris’ Citadel Of The Dead - Père Lachaise Cemetery

 

It was a few years ago now, whilst on a trip to Paris to see The Stranglers at the Cigale in late November 2017. The gig was great, as was the company, and much wine and beer flowed during the course of the day of the show. Despite the late night my wife, Gunta, and I were due to return to the UK on the Eurostar in the late afternoon of the following day, so a lie in was considered to be a shameful waste of time when one could see something new of Paris.

What better possible way could there be to blow away the cobwebs of the night before, so to speak, than to spend a couple of hours within the walls of the Père Lachaise Cemetery.

The Père Lachaise Cemetery was opened in 1804, the year in which Napoleon proclaimed that "Every citizen has the right to be buried regardless of race or religion". A considerable distance at that time from central Paris, the uptake was limited and funerals were few until a piece of macabre marketing bolstered the popularity of the site. The remains of the celebrated French poets, Jean de La Fontaine and Molière, were uprooted and relocated at Père Lachaise. From a position of ‘If it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me’, the grounds of the cemetery began to fill.

Now containing over one million burials and countless other persons cremated and housed in the Columbarium, an 1894 addition to the cemetery, Père Lachaise stakes the claim to be the most visited necropolis in the world (something that the Valley of The Kings could contest perhaps?).

An especially macabre feature in this veritable theatre of the macabre is the Communards’ Wall in front of which 147 Communards were executed by shooting on 28th May 1871. This was the day that ended so called ‘Bloody Week’ and saw the crushing of the Paris Commune, a radical, revolutionary government that very briefly ruled Paris in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian war.

With a map in hand upon which the locations of the graves of famed singers, writers, poets and politicians were marked we entered the largest graveyard in Paris. Within 10 minutes we were comfortably lost amongst the irregular criss-cross lay out of the garden’s many avenues. Any systematic attempts to locate a famous interment were soon abandoned as it became clear that Paris’ best cartographer must have been ‘en vacance’ when the map was produced. Furthermore, beyond the mausoleum lined avenues the burials are placed over the land in a pretty random fashion, adding greatly to the difficultly in locating a particular tomb. It is also a consideration that the still present effects of Kronenburg 1664 and red wine did nothing to enhance our powers of detection!

Truely they could claim that their next door neighbours were 'Bigots'

The weather was fine and bright, if cold, the perfect winter conditions for a cemetery saunter. So, it was no hardship just to walk and take in the sites of all that we saw and to hell with celebrity status! The main thoroughfares are lined family memorials that could well be described as ‘gothic greenhouses’ or ‘Bauhaus beach huts’, that would be the ‘80’s band of ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ fame rather than the Weimar Art School of course! Some of these structures are fabulously decayed as if the elements and the fauna have conspired to bring the masonry down in a concerted effort of reclaimation. 

My highlight of the trip was seeing the tomb below. Judging by the effigy that topped his grave, resplendent in death in a frock coat, waist coat and top hat, in life he may have been something of a dandy and perhaps a bit of a ladies man. A reputation retained in death? Over the years his image in bronze has oxidised to beautiful and uniform verdigris…..well almost uniform. There is a tradition that touching statues can convey good luck to the passer by (compare with the bronze sculpture of Winston Churchill in the Houses of Parliament whose highly polished (and now protected from the caressing hands of the public) foot was for many years at stark visual odds with the rest of him! So it is for Monsieur Amour (not his real name) whose manhood would likewise appear to be lucky to some visitors if its shine were any kind of proof!

It was entirely in keeping too that our path within the depths of the cemetery should cross that of a living resident of the area, a rook or a crow, sporting an iridescent black plumage of which Queen Victoria herself would have been envious.

With apologies to Jim, Oscar, Marcel and all of the other illustrious residents of Père Lachaise, we located but one plot which, in company with the above,  attracts so many visitors to the cemetery and who could be more apt when in Paris to pay our respects to than France’s ‘Little Sparrow’, Edith Piaf.

If in Paris, a visit to this tranquil space is more than deserving of a couple of hours of your time.