Epitaphs on Parish Clerks and Sextons. OT a few of our old parish clerks and NOT sextons were eccentric characters, and it is not therefore surprising that their epitaphs are amongst the most curious of the many strange examples to be found in the quiet resting-places of the departed. In the churchyard of Crayford is a gravestone bearing the following inscription :— Here lieth the body of PETER ISNELL, Thirty years clerk of this Parish. He lived respected as a pious and mirthful man, and died on his way to church to assist at a wedding, On the 31st day of March, 1811, Aged 70 years. The inhabitants of Crayford have raised this stone to his cheerful memory, and as a tribute to his long and faithful services. The life of this clerk, just three score and ten, Nearly half of which time he had sung out “Amen ;” 66 His voice was deep bass, as he In addition to being parish clerk, Frank Raw, of Selby, Yorkshire, was a gravestone cutter, for we are told : Here lies the body of poor FRANK RAW, And this is writ to let you know What Frank for others used to do, Is now for Frank done by another. The next epitaph, placed to the memory of a parish clerk and bellows-maker, was formerly in the old church of All Saints', Newcastle-onTyne : Here lies Robert Wallas, The King of Good Fellows, Clerk of All-Hallows, And maker of bellows. On a slate headstone, near the south porch of Bingham Church, Nottinghamshire, is inscribed : Beneath this stone lies THOMAs Hart, Of Parish Clerk: few did excel. His words distinct, his voice so clear, At eighty-two his breath resigned, And Christ receive him into heav'n. From the churchyard of Ratcliffe-on-Soar, we have a curious epitaph to the memory of Robert Smith, who died in 1782, aged 82 years : Fifty-five years it was, and something more, Clerk of this parish he the office bore, And in that space, 'tis awful to declare, Two generations buried by him were! In a note by Mr. Llewellyn Jewitt, F.S.A., we are told that with the clerkship of Bakewell Church, the "vocal powers" of its holders appear to have been to some extent hereditary, if we may judge by the inscriptions recording the deaths and the abilities of two members of the family of Roe, which are found on gravestones in the churchyard there. The first of these, recording the death of Samuel Roe, is as under : |