Epitaphs on Parish Clerks and Sextons.

NOT

OT a few of our old parish clerks and 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

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sung out Amen;"
In youth he was married, like other young men,
But his wife died one day, so he chanted "Amen."
A second he took, she departed-what then?
He married and buried a third with "Amen."

Thus his joys and his sorrows were treble, but then

His voice was deep bass, as he sung out
"Amen."
On the horn he could blow as well as most men ;
So his horn was exalted to blowing 66 Amen."

But he lost all his wind after three score and ten,
And here, with three wives, he awaits till again
The trumpet shall rouse him to sing out "Amen."

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,
Parish clerk and gravestone cutter,

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,
Years fifty-eight he took the part
Of Parish Clerk: few did excel.
Correct he read and sung so well;

His words distinct, his voice so clear,
Till eighteen hundred and fiftieth year.
Death cut the brittle thread, and then
A period put to his Amen.

At eighty-two his breath resigned,
To meet the fate of all mankind;
The third of May his soul took flight
To mansions of eternal light.
The bell for him with awful tone

His body summoned to the tomb.
Oh! may his sins be all forgiv'n

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 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 :—

He had three wives, Millicent, who died in 1745, aged 22; Dorothy, who died 1754, aged 28; and Sarah, who survived him and died in

1811, at the age of 77. A gravestone records

the death of his first two wives as follows, and the third is commemorated in the above inscription.

MILLICENT,

Wife of Saml Roe,

She died Sepr 16th, 1745, aged 22.

DOROTHY,

Wife of Saml Roe,

She died Novr 13th, 1754, aged 28.

Respecting the above-mentioned Samuel Roe,

a contributor to the Gentleman's Magazine wrote, on February 13th, 1794

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'Mr. Urban,

It was with much concern that I read the epitaph upon Mr. Roe, in your last volume, p. 1192. Upon a little tour which I made in Derbyshire, in 1789, I met with that worthy and very intelligent man at Bakewell, and, in the course of my antiquarian researches there, derived no inconsiderable assistance from his zeal and civility. If he did not possess the learning of his namesake, your old and valuable correspondent, I will venture to declare that he was not less influenced by a love and veneration for antiquity, many proofs of which he had given by his care and attention to the monuments in the church, which were committed to his charge; for he united the characters of sexton, clerk, singingmaster, will-maker, and school-master. Finding that I was quite alone, he requested permission to wait upon me at the inn in the evening, urging, as a reason for this request, that he must be exceedingly gratified by the conversation of a gentleman who could read the characters upon the monument of Vernon, the founder of Haddon House, a treat he had not met with for many