William Andrews - Curious Epitaphs, Collected from the Graveyards of Great Britain and Ireland.

Our next is from Berkeley, Gloucestershire: —

The following is from Bolsover churchyard, Derbyshire: —

Respecting the next example, our friend, Mr. Edward Walford, M.A., wrote to the Times as follows: “Close to the south-western corner of the parish churchyard of Hampstead there has long stood a square tomb, with a scarcely decipherable inscription, to the memory of a man of science of the last century, whose name is connected with the history of practical navigation. The tomb, having stood there for more than a century, had become somewhat dilapidated, and has lately undergone a careful restoration at the cost and under the supervision of the Company of Clockmakers, and the fact is recorded in large characters on the upper face. The tops of the upright iron railings which surround the tomb have been gilt, and the restored inscription runs as follows: ‘In memory of Mr. John Harrison, late of Red Lion-square, London, inventor of the time-keeper for ascertaining the longitude at sea. He was born at Foulby, in the county of York, and was the son of a builder of that place, who brought him up to the same profession. Before he attained the age of 21, he, without any instruction, employed himself in cleaning and repairing clocks and watches, and made a few of the former, chiefly of wood. At the age of 25 he employed his whole time in chronometrical improvements. He was the inventor of the gridiron pendulum, and the method of preventing the effects of heat and cold upon time-keepers by two bars fixed together; he introduced the secondary spring, to keep them going while winding up, and was the inventor of most (or all) the improvements in clocks and watches during his time. In the year 1735 his first time-keeper was sent to Lisbon, and in 1764 his then much improved fourth time-keeper having been sent to Barbadoes, the Commissioners of Longitude certified that he had determined the longitude within one-third of half a degree of a great circle, having not erred more than forty seconds in time. After sixty years’ close application to the above pursuits, he departed this life on the 24th day of March, 1776, aged 83.

In an epitaph in High Wycombe churchyard, life is compared to the working of a clock. It runs thus: —

We have some curious specimens of engineers’ epitaphs. A good example is copied from the churchyard of Bridgeford-on-the-Hill, Notts: —

Our next is on a railway engineer, who died in 1840, and was buried in Bromsgrove churchyard: —

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