Lawrance Family Monument, South Enclosure

635-1/0/10264 BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND 21-FEB-11 Lawrance family monument, South enclos ure

GV II Headstone of David Mountague Lawrance and family, 1806

LOCATION: 532722.2, 182222.6

MATERIALS: Sandstone

DESCRIPTION: The monument takes the form of an upright slab with a shaped top. The first part of the inscription reads: 'The family grave / of / DAVID MOUNTAGUE LAWRANCE / who died April 19th 1806 / Aged 25 Years. / The dying words of the Deceas'd / was "Glory Glory Glory". Further inscriptions record the burials of Lawrance's father, grandson and other members of the family.

HISTORY: Bunhill Fields was first enclosed as a burial ground in 1665. Thanks to its location just outside the City boundary, and its independence from any Established place of worship, it became London's principal Nonconformist cemetery, the burial place of John Bunyan, Daniel Defoe, William Blake and other leading religious and intellectual figures. It was closed for burials in 1853, laid out as a public park in 1867, and re-landscaped following war damage by Bridgewater and Shepheard in 1964-5.

SOURCES: Corporation of London, A History of the Bunhill Fields Burial Ground (1902). A W Light, Bunhill Fields (London, 1915).

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The Lawrance family monument is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * Its inscription, recording the deceased's terminal outburst of devout rapture, epitomises the 'enthusiastic' piety of the day, and with it the Evangelical spirituality of the Bunhill Fields Nonconformists. * It is located within the Grade I registered Bunhill Fields Burial Ground (q.v.), and has group value with the other listed tombs in the south enclosure.