The Children's Story of Westminster AbbeyTroutbeck, G. E. (Georgina E.)
History
The Children's Story of Westminster Abbey
Troutbeck, G. E. (Georgina E.)
Westminster Abbey
In the North Transept there is a monument to Jonas Hanway, a
philanthropist and traveller, who died in 1786. Hanway was so kind, and
worked so hard to help those who were less fortunate than himself, that
he was called “the friend and father of the poor.” He is said to have
been the first person in England who ever carried an umbrella. It seems
curious that such a useful invention was not made until the eighteenth
century.
In the West Cloister is a monument to Dr. Benjamin Cooke, who died in
1793, having been organist of the Abbey for thirty years. In the North
Aisle of the Choir are the grave and monument of Dr. Samuel Arnold, a
well-known Church musician, who succeeded Dr. Cooke as organist of the
Abbey, and died in 1802.
Two famous engravers, William Woollett, who died in 1785, and George
Vertue, who died in 1756, have monuments in the West Cloister. Vertue is
buried in the North Cloister, near one of his family, who was a monk.
Several well-known actors and actresses of the eighteenth century are
also buried in the Cloisters.
CHAPTER IX
THE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES
—”_our slowly grown
And crown’d Republic_.”
TENNYSON (_To the Queen_).
It is very difficult properly to divide the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, because, of course, history does not cut itself up into
lengths of a hundred years. But in telling the story of a place like the
Abbey it is better to have some division, and as the French Revolution
took place nearly at the end of the eighteenth century, a kind of
natural division comes at that time, for we know that the French
Revolution made a great and lasting change all over Europe.
[Illustration:
[_D. Weller_.
STATUE OF WILLIAM WILBERFORCE.
]
When we begin to speak of the early nineteenth century we have again to
think of wars, for the fights with Napoleon were still going on.
Nelson’s great victories have not left much record in the Abbey,
excepting the wax effigy of the great Admiral himself, of which we will
speak later. One of Nelson’s Captains, Edward Cooke, has a monument in
the Abbey. Cooke died of a wound which he received during a victorious
fight with a French frigate in the Bay of Bengal in 1799.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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