GRAVEYARD
St Andrew's grave yard is a peaceful place where you can sit, relax, think and pray.
Please be respectful of the graves as you enjoy the peace and beauty of this sacred land.
Every grave is the final resting place, and heart felt memorial to someone. Each life is a unique story worth telling. Below are just a few of the lives remembered by these stones.
Professor Sir Richard Owen (1804 - 1892)
Text and photo from www.findagrave.com
Sir Richard Owen KCB, was a prominent biologist and paleontologist, who invented the word "dinosaur". Born in Lancaster, a lazy pupil at school, one source claims that he went to sea as a midshipman in the navy. Another claims that he studied medicine under a local teacher. However, aged twenty, he trained as a doctor, In Edinburgh, but gave up the possibility of a career in surgery, to concentrate on scientific research. Work in the area of comparative anatomy lead him to the research of extinct species. Having become superintendant of the natural history department of the British Museum, he developed the idea of building an entirely separate Natural History Museum at South Kensington, which he saw through to it's completion in 1884. His works and books are too diverse to review here, though one facet was to produce life-size models of dinosaurs for display at Crystal Palace. Refer to Wikipedia for more details. Throughout his life, he was a competent musician. In 1881 a fine portrait was done by Holman Hunt. At the time of his death, Richard Owen was living at Mortlake, on the River Thames. He shared his household with several members of his family - Emily, Basil, Clive and young Emily - and three others - Joseph Barrett, Eliza Streeton and Florence Andrews.
You can find our much more about his life and work here.
The Hon Violet Hyachinth Bowes-Lyon (1882 - 1893)
Text from www.findagrave.com
The Hon Violet Hyacinth Bowes-Lyon died of diptheria, aged 11. Her father was Claude George Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, KG, KT, GCVO, TD, maternal grandfather to Queen Elizabeth II. Violet Bowes-Lyon was elder sister to Elizabeth, The Queen Mother and aunt to Queen Elizabeth II, though she died 7 years before the birth of her sister, Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. As she died before her father became Earl, Violet Bowes-Lyon never inherited the title of Lady. Claude Bowes-Lyon lived 14 March 1855 – 7 November 1944.
William Samuel Hudson Palmer (1896 - 1917)
In 1906 he went to school at the Tiffin Boys School before spending two years at Hampton Grammar. Excelling at Maths and Chemistry he passed the entrance examination to take a three-year Electrical Engineering course at Finsbury City and Guilds Technical College.
At the end of his second year in 1915, aged 18, he suspended his studies and applied to join the Royal Flying Corps. He was advised to gain some military experience and enlisted in the Officer Training Corps of the Artists’ Rifles with whom he undertook six months basic military training.
In March 1916, he joined the first line battalion of his regiment at St Omer in France. Although undertaking responsible duties in support of the British General Headquarters the unit was kept away from the ongoing slaughter in the Somme valley, further south.
On 1st May 1917, William qualified for a temporary commission as an officer and was accepted for training in the Royal Flying Corps. During the First World War, more pilots were killed in accidents than in aerial combat.
Having passed all the technical examinations, he was posted to 47 Training Squadron, of the 27th Wing stationed at Waddington in the flat lands of Lincolnshire. He was now in the final stage of gaining his “Wings”
On September 15th 1917, 2nd Lieutenant William Palmer, having passed the initial two flying tests, only had to complete a final solo flight to achieve his dream and gain his wings. Just as his plane touched down at the end of the flight the engine caught fire and burst into flames. William was severely burnt before he could be pulled from the plane. He died some four hours later of his injuries. He was twenty years old.
William’s father travelled to Lincolnshire the following day to collect the body of his son. He was the only young man of this Parish, who fell during the war, to be buried in this churchyard. On his gravestone his parents had engraved;
“Fly on, dear boy, from this dark world of strife on to the land of promise, into eternal life.”
Lieutenant Stewart Carmac Weigall RN (1864 - 1910)
Stewart was born in 1864 to the Reverend Edward Mitford Weigall (Vicar of Fiodingam) and Helen Sophie Carmac. In 1877 Steward received a nomination from Rear Admiral Lambeth for a naval cadetship at Britannia, the Royal Navy's Training vessel moored at Dartmouth. In the same year he passed the required entrance examination coming 35th in his class. Two years later, in 1979, he passed out of Britannia, receiving a prize for a sketch with pen and pencil. His prize was a sketching wallet which he put to good use.
He arrived on the Australian Station in 1893 as a lieutenant on HMS Penguin for surveying duties in the Solomon Islands. In 1897 he transferred to the Waterwatch working on the North Queensland Coast. Weigall Reefs north of Cooktown are names after him. In 1987 he was transferred to the China station. In 1901 he married Ethel Maud Berry. They had two children, Anthony in 1902 and Celia in 1905. Anthony had a reputation as a good sportsman.