A road-book to old ChelseaStuart, G. B. (Grace Benedicta)
History
A road-book to old Chelsea
Stuart, G. B. (Grace Benedicta)
Chelsea (London, England) -- Guidebooks
On the pillar north of the pulpit hangs the tablet of the clever
and eccentric Dr. Baldwin Hamey, who retired from medical practice
in 1665 and came to live at Chelsea. He gave liberally to the
church restoration fund—perhaps influenced by Lady Jane Cheyne’s
enthusiasm—but as a scientist he was intolerant of dogma, and used
to carry a leather-bound Virgil to church with him, which passed for
a Testament, and saved him from the tedium of listening to doctrine
to which he did not conform. He was buried, uncoffined and merely
wrapped in a sheet, in the chancel, and his epitaph is a hopeless one,
“When the breath goeth out of a Man, he returneth to his Earth,” but
later, in 1880, the Royal College of Physicians restored his tablet “in
grateful remembrance of their benefactor,” and in spite of the declared
pessimism of his creed, his good work is not “interred with his
bones,” but lives in the kindly worded remembrance of his scientific
brotherhood.
On the opposite pillar (south side) a tiny figure of St. Luke, “the
doctor’s saint,” stands on a bracket; it formerly decorated the canopy
of the pulpit. It was contributed by John Fletcher—Dr. Hamey’s servant
and assistant—to the ornamentation of the church at its restoration
in 1667, when the “beloved physician” was still patron of the parish.
No one has ever satisfactorily explained why, for 300 years, the old
dedication to All Saints was in abeyance, and St. Luke was substituted;
perhaps at the Reformation St. Luke, the man of science, was
considered a more suitable patron for the Church of the New Learning.
The stones and inscriptions on the floor of the church show that many
Chelsea people lie beneath. Sometimes the scrutiny of names leads
to considerable enlightenment of family and local history, but for
Chelsea’s visitors this study has no special attraction, so we will
not burden them with pavement inscriptions. From a corner between the
More Chapel and the nave, nine leaden coffins were removed about forty
years ago, when the heating of the church necessitated new stove-pipes.
These coffins were supposed to belong to the More family, and may
have enclosed the bodies of Will and Margaret Roper, of “Mistress
More,” the Chancellor’s second wife, and of Bishop Fisher, but their
identification was uncertain. They were removed to the Parish Church in
Sydney Street and privately re-interred.
The chained books under the south window are a more cheerful reminder
of Tudor times, and of Henry VIII.’s decree of a Parish Church Bible,
though these are not the original sixteenth-century volumes, but a
later set presented by Sir Hans Sloane. They consist of:
A “Vinegar” Bible (Baskett’s edition, dated 1717).
The Book of Common Prayer, 1723.
The Book of Homilies (2 volumes) formerly belonging to Trelawny, the
great Bishop of Winchester, 1683.
Two volumes (Nos. I. and III.) of Foxe’s _Book of Martyrs_. A very fine
edition dated 1684.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account