Curious Epitaphs, Collected from the Graveyards of Great Britain and Ireland.Andrews, William
General
Curious Epitaphs, Collected from the Graveyards of Great Britain and Ireland.
Andrews, William
Epitaphs -- Great Britain
"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, singing-master, 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 years. After
a very pleasant gossip we parted, but not till my honest friend had,
after some apparent struggle, begged of me to indulge him with my name."
To his careful attention is to be attributed the preservation of the
curious Vernon and other monuments in the church, over which in some
instances he placed wooden framework to keep off the rough hands and
rougher knives of the boys and young men of the congregation. He also
watched with special care over the Wendesley tomb, and even took careful
rubbings of the inscriptions.
While speaking of this Mr. Roe, it may be well to put the readers of this
work in possession of an interesting fact in connection with the name of
Roe, or Row. The writer above, in his letter to Mr. Urban, says, "If he
did not possess the learning of his namesake, your old and valued
correspondent," &c. By this he means "T Row," whose contributions to the
_Gent's. Mag._ were very numerous and interesting. The writer under this
signature was the Rev. Samuel Pegge, rector of Whittington, and the
letters forming this pseudonym were the initials of the words, T[he]
R[ector] O[f] W[hittington].
Philip Roe, who succeeded his father (Samuel Roe) as parish clerk of
Bakewell, was his son by his third wife. He was born in 1763, and
succeeded his father in full parochial honours in 1792, having, we
believe, for some time previously acted as his deputy. He died in 1815,
aged 52 years, and was buried with the other members of the family. The
following curious inscription appears on his grave-stone:--
Erected
In remembrance of
PHILIP ROE
_who died 12th September, 1815_
AGED 52 YEARS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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