Burial Bequests
In June, 1864, there died at Drogheda one Miss Hardman, at the advanced age of ninety-two years. She was buried in the family vault in Peter’s Protestant Church. The funeral took place on the eighth day of her decease. It is not usual in Ireland to allow so long an interval to elapse between the time of a person’s death and burial; in this instance it was owing to the expressed wish of the deceased, and this originated in a very curious piece of family and local history. Everybody has heard of the lady who was buried, being supposed dead, and who bearing with her to the tomb, on her finger, a ring of rare price, this was the means of her being rescued from her charnel prison-house. A butler in the family of the lady, having his cupidity excited, entered the vault at midnight in order to possess himself of the ring, and in removing it from the finger the lady was restored to consciousness and made her way in her grave-clothes to her mansion. She lived many years afterwards before she was finally consigned to the vault. The heroine of the story was a member of the Hardman family—in fact, the late Miss Hardman’s mother—and the vault in Peter’s Church was the locality where the startling revival scene took place.
The story is commonly told in explanation of a monument in the Church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, London, which is commemorative of Constance Whitney, and represents a female rising from a coffin. “This,” says Mr. Godwin, in his popular history of the Churches of London, “has been erroneously supposed to commemorate a lady, who, having been buried in a trance, was restored to life through the cupidity of the sexton, which induced him to dig up the body to obtain possession of a ring.” The female rising from the coffin is undoubtedly emblematic of the Resurrection, and may have been repeated upon other monuments elsewhere; but there is no such monument at Drogheda, which as above is claimed as the actual locality.
On May 24th, 1837, there died at Primrose Cottage, High Wycombe, Bucks, Mr. John Guy, aged sixty-four. His remains were interred in a brick grave in Hughenden Churchyard: on a marble slab, on the lid of the coffin, is inscribed:
Here, without nail or shroud, doth lie,
Or covered with a pall, John Guy,
Born May 17th, 1773.
Died, „ 24th, 1837.
On his gravestone are the following lines:—
In coffin made without a nail,
Without a shroud his limbs to hide;
For what can pomp or show avail,
Or velvet pall to swell the pride?
Mr. Guy was possessed of considerable property, and was a native of Gloucestershire. His grave and coffin were made under his directions more than a twelvemonth previous to his death; he wrote the inscriptions, he gave the orders for his funeral, and wrapped in separate pieces of paper five shillings for each of the bearers. The coffin was very neatly made, and looked more like a piece of cabinet-work for a drawing-room than a receptacle for the dead.
Dr. Fidge, a physician of the old school, who in early days had accompanied the Duke of Clarence (afterwards William IV.) when a midshipman as medical attendant, possessed a favourite boat; upon his retirement from Portsmouth Dockyard, where he held an appointment, he had this boat converted into a coffin, with the sternpiece fixed at its head. This coffin he kept under his bed for many years. The circumstances of his death were very remarkable. Feeling his end approaching, and desiring to add a codicil to his will, he sent for his solicitor. On entering his chamber he found him suffering from a paroxysm of pain, but which soon ceased; availing himself of the temporary ease to ask him how he felt, he replied, smiling: “I feel as easy as an old shoe,” and looking towards the nurse in attendance, said: “Just pull my legs straight, and place me as a dead man; it will save you trouble shortly,” words which he had scarcely uttered before he calmly died.
Job Orton, of the Bell Inn, Kidderminster, had his tombstone, with an epitaphic couplet, erected in the parish churchyard; and his coffin was used by him for a wine-bin until required for another purpose.
Dr. John Gardner, “the worm doctor,” originally of Long Acre, erected his tomb and wrote the inscription thereon some years before his death. Strangers reading the inscription naturally concluded he was like his predecessor, “Egregious Moore,” immortalized by Pope, “food for worms,” whereas he was still following his profession, that of a worm-doctor, in Norton Folgate, where he had a shop, in the window of which were displayed numerous bottles containing specimens of tape and other worms, with the names of the persons who had been tormented by them, and the date of their ejection. Finding his practice declining from the false impression conveyed by his epitaph, he dexterously caused the word intended to be interpolated, and the inscription for a long time afterwards ran as follows:—
intended
Dr. John Gardner’s last and best bedroom.
^
He was a stout, burly man, with a flaxen wig, and rode daily into London on a large roan-coloured horse.
Not a few misers have carried their penury into the arrangements for their interment. Edward Nokes, of Hornchurch, by his own direction, was buried in this curious fashion:—A short time before his death, which he hastened by the daily indulgence in nearly a quart of spirits, he gave strict charge that his coffin should not have a nail in it, which was actually adhered to, the lid being made fast with hinges of cord, and minus a coffin-plate, for which the initials E. N. cut upon the wood were substituted. His shroud was made of a pound of wool. The coffin was covered with a sheet in place of a pall, and was carried by six men, to each of whom he directed should be given half-a-crown. At his particular desire, too, not one who followed him to the grave was in mourning; but, on the contrary, each of the mourners appeared to try whose dress should be the most striking. Even the undertaker was dressed in a blue coat and scarlet waistcoat.
Another deplorable case might be cited, that of Thomas Pitt, of Warwickshire. It is reported that some weeks prior to the sickness which terminated his despicable career, he went to several undertakers in quest of a cheap coffin. He had left behind him 3,475l. in the public funds.