The Stone Infant

The Church of St Michael's and All Angels in the Bronte village of Haworth in Yorkshire has a graveyard that is visited by thousands of tourists every year. There are many poignant reminders of the high children's mortality rate of the time with 40% of children dying before the age of six.

The Haworth Church website records that there are estimated to be 42,000 burials in the graveyard and that many of the graves, from the time of the Bronte family, hold entire families including a number of infants. English Heritage, in its Haworth-Village of the Brontes leaflet, that one memorial records that Joseph Heaton buried seven infant children and that there are many similar gravestones in the village's burial grounds.

Joseph Heaton was a highly skilled stone mason and the memorial he carved for his family is the most visited grave in the graveyard. Locally, the grave is referred to as 'The Stone Infant' for it includes a representation of a child [said to be James Whitham Heaton] laid with its head resting on a pillow. A canopy above shelters the child.

The inscription reads;

SACRED

To

the memory of James William

Son of

Joseph & Elizabeth Heaton

of Haworth

who died

in the 1st year of his age

ALSO three infants of theirs

ALSO James Whitham

Their son died July 19th 1878

in the 2nd year of his age

ALSO Elizabeth their daughter

who died June 19th 1885

ALSO an infant son of theirs

ALSO of the above named

Joseph Heaton

who died March 18th 1914

in his 69th year

ALSO Elizabeth his wife

who died April 22nd 1917

in her 71st year

'Sweet Rest At Last'