Hand in Hand!

Broken from its base, this headstone lies flat on the grass of Blackburn Cemetery in Lancashire. At first sight, it shows the familiar Victorian symbol of two hands clasped together. Above is the inscription - We Shall Meet On That Beautiful Shore. What makes this both poignant and unusual is that, instead of the usual male and female hands, this depicts a Mother's hand clasping that of its child. Very sad! It is the first of its type that I have seen, but there must be others. The grave marks the last resting place of Elizabeth Jane, the beloved daughter of Charles and Nancy Eastwood, whose short life spanned the period 1873-1876. Next came Ernest Charles who was born in 1880 and dies 12 days short of his tenth birthday in 1890. In 1901, their mother Nancy died aged 50, while father Charles lived on until 1910 aged 63 years.

I have since traced some details of the family who lived in Bright Street, Blackburn - Charles Eastwood was an Engineer and a Driver in a Cotton Mill. Wife Nancy is a Housekeeper, while there is a surviving son - Thomas Edwin who in 1891 was a 13-year-old Cotton Weaver. By 1901, he was Lorry Driver for a Corn Mill.

Keeping hold of a young child's Hand

I've posted before of the graveyard symbolism of putting a image of clasped hands on a gravestone. Here is an example I have not seen before. It depicts an adult hand holding that of a child. Richard Henry, beloved son of Richard Graveson and Mary Evans who died, aged 7 years and 3 months who died on 22 May, 1890.

The Blackburn Giant

Frederick John Kempster was known as the British Giant and he is buried in Blackburn Cemetery in Lancashire. He caught influenza and developed pneumonia and died in 1918. At the time of his death he was said to be 7ft 11" tall. Later, the undertakers daughter claimed he was actually 8ft 4" and that her father had made a coffin nine feet long. The size of the grave is astonishing when you stand in front of it, as I did today. If you are in the area, you really ought to visit it so you can see for yourselves just how big it is. Amazing! I can remember my parents once telling me about a giant in the 1930s they had seen in the street. He would shake hands with people standing at their upstairs window, but it wasn't Kempster.