Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/43

 10 s. x. JULY ii, 1.908.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

31

NONCONFORMIST BURIAL-GROUNDS

AND GRAVESTONES. (10 S. ix. 188, 333, 297, 336, 434.)

MR. S. L. PETTY' s inquiry as to names appearing on Quaker gravestones may be answered by the following extract from 4 The Diaries of Edward Pease,' by Sir Alfred E. Pease, Bart. (London, 1907), p. 27 :

"Vaults are rare n Friends' families. Tomb- stones have comparatively recently been permitted, and no epitaphs are allowed, nor are the grave- atones permitted to be ornamental. In all Quaker graveyards they are of a uniform plain type. At first only a flat stone on the grave was allowed, with names and dates. Now headstones of a simple pattern have been permitted."

In the early history of the Society some laxity appears to have crept in, for we read in J. W. Steel's ' Historical Sketch of the Society of Friends in Newcastle and Gates- head 1 (London, 1899), p. 40, that in 1703 " the many gravestones that Shields Friends have in their burying-ground " caused concern, and their removal was ordered " with consent of parties concerned." The writer adds that the Shields Friends did not wish to remove them, but said they would discontinue the practice of putting them up.

At the Yearly Meeting in 1825 liberty was granted to the Friends in Newcastle and dis- trict to have gravestones 20 in. by 30 in. and 6 in. thick. But not a single Quaker family in Newcastle made use of it, and their burying-ground, containing over 400 bodies, remains plain and unencumbered. Since it was closed, however, the various town cemeteries have been utilized, and in them Friends have erected tombstones as it pleased them. RICHARD WELFOBD.

The following extracts from -a work rarely

seen by others than those who are members

of the Society of Friends i.e., 'The Book of

Christian Discipline ' may be of interest :

" BURIALS AND MOURNING HABITS.

"4. This Meeting, after serious and deliberate consideration of the subject, is of the judgment, that our religious Society has a sound Christian testimony to bear against the erection of monu- ments, as well as against all inscriptions of a eulogistic character, over the graves of their de- ceased friends. Nevertheless, it is of the opinion that it is no violation of such testimony to place over or beside a grave a plain stone, the inscription on which is confined to a simple record of the name, age, and date of the decease of the individual

interred. The object in this instance is simply to define the position of the grave, with a view to the satisfaction of surviving relatives, and the pre- venting of its premature reopening.

"Friends are therefore left at liberty to adopt the use of such stones in any of our burial-grounds ; it being distinctly understood that, in all cases, they are to be put down under the direction of the Monthly Meeting ; so that in each particular burial- ground, such a uniformity may be preserved as may effectually guard against any distinction being made in that place between the rich and the poor. 1850, 1861, 1883."

A. R. WALLER.

I have met with many headstones with merely the initials and date of the person buried, but until I made a visit to the republic of Andorra in the Pyrenees, between France and Spain, I never saw any burial- grounds without tombstones to mark a person's place of burial. There were no tombstones or inscriptions ; the burial- grounds were enclosed near the churches. . HUBERT SMITH STANIER.

Whatever MR. S. L. PETTY may have observed to the contrary in Quaker burial- grounds in the North, here at Exeter the fifty-six modest headstones marking the graves of members of that particular sect, still in existence in their graveyard, are all inscribed, although, as a rule, briefly. A fair tablet in the porch of the chapel records :

"The first Meeting House of the Society of Friends in Exeter stood here from 1690 to 1852, when it was sold. A second, built by the Society on Friar's Walk in 1835, was also sold in 1869. This site was afterwards repurchased, and the present structure was erected in 1876." Framed in an upper room, known as the library, is an interesting old print repre- senting the original structure, whilst in its foreground are seen several members of the community, male and female, wearing their particular form of dress. Although, as the tablet explains, the Friends disposed of their place of worship in 1852, and cer- tainly for the succeeding twenty-four years held services elsewhere, the old burial-ground has always been sacredly preserved, and an inspection of the more than half a hundred headstones it contains quite upsets A. N. Q.'s impression, as well as MR. J. BAVTNGTON JONES'S statement (at 10 S. ix. 233) that the Society of Friends did not allow memo- rial stones until 1851. Nor was any atten- tion (at least here in Exeter) paid to a rule laid down in that year specifying that "plain York or Portland stones, not exceeding 3 ft. in length and 2 ft. in breadth, were to be laid flat and uniformly on the middle of the graves." In the first place, I know