Monument To Daniel Williams, East Enclosure

Monument to Daniel Williams, East Enclosure

A chest tomb of Daniel Williams, probably early 18th century, with late 19th-century embellishments, located in Bunhill Fields Burial Ground.

The monument is constructed in Portland stone with darker grey stone used for pilasters, inscription panels and the top slab. Leaded lettering picks out the inscriptions. The monument takes the form of a rectangular stone chest with a moulded lid and base, set upon a broad stone plinth which retains traces of its former wrought-iron railings. The ends of the chest feature two fluted pilasters in dark grey stone framing a raised and fielded panel with multiple mouldings. The long sides have coupled pilasters framing an oval panel, also in grey stone, with a carved drapery surround. The inscriptions are picked out in gold; that on the southern panel names Williams as the founder of the Red Cross Street library, while the northern inscription commemorates Thomas Morgan LLD (1752–1821), librarian at the same institution. The lid bears a lengthy Latin text in honour of Williams, with raised lead lettering.

Daniel Williams (1643?–1716) was a Presbyterian minister and the semi-official leader of London's Dissenting community in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Born near Wrexham around 1643, by the age of 19 he had embraced Nonconformity and acquired a reputation as a preacher. His early ministerial career was spent in Ireland, but sectarian unrest forced a move to London in 1687. In 1689 he was elected minister to the Presbyterian congregation at Hand Alley, Bishopsgate. Despite vigorous and occasionally rancorous engagement in contemporary theological debates, his political ability and influence made him a valuable spokesman for the whole body of Dissenters. Upon the accession of Queen Anne in 1702 he delivered an address to the Crown on behalf of England's three main Nonconformist denominations. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow in 1709. On his death in 1716 he left a large fortune to endow a number of educational charities, including the theological library now at Gordon Square that still bears his name.

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.