Monument To Theophilus And Hannah Lindsey, Thomas Belsham And Elizabeth Raynor, North Section

Chest tomb, circa 1808, relocated 1964-5

This monument in Bunhill Fields Burial Ground takes the form of a rectangular stone chest constructed from Portland stone. It has a coped top and moulded base, with simple pilasters adorning the two longer sides. The principal inscription records the details of Theophilus Lindsey's "blameless and exemplary life". Additional inscriptions commemorate the burials of Lindsey's wife Hannah and their associates Thomas Belsham and Elizabeth Raynor, who share the tomb. An inscription on the edge of the upper slab quotes from book XI of Ovid's Metamorphoses: "si non ossibus ossa meis at nomen nomine tangam" ("we shall touch, if not bone to bone, then at least name to name").

Theophilus Lindsey (1723-1808) was born in Middlewich, Cheshire, and educated there and at Leeds Grammar School before attending St John's College, Cambridge, where he became a fellow in 1747. He was ordained an Anglican priest the same year. As godson of the Earl of Huntingdon, he held influential connections within the Evangelical wing of the aristocracy, which allowed him to serve as chaplain to the Duke of Somerset, tutor to the future Duke of Northumberland, and rector of various parishes in Somerset and Yorkshire. Under the influence of friends including Francis Blackburne and Joseph Priestley, Lindsey adopted increasingly latitudinarian and Unitarian views. After the House of Commons rejected his Feathers Tavern petition, he seceded from the Church of England and in 1774 established a chapel in Essex Street in London, an event regarded as marking the emergence of Unitarianism as a distinct denomination. His works, including A Liturgy (an adapted version of the Anglican rite for Unitarian congregations) and An Apology (setting out the grounds of his break with the Church of England), became foundational to later Unitarian practice and belief.

Bunhill Fields was first enclosed as a burial ground in 1665. Its location outside the City boundary and independence from any Established place of worship made it London's principal Nonconformist cemetery, burial place of John Bunyan, Daniel Defoe, William Blake and other leading religious and intellectual figures. The ground 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. The latter scheme involved clearing the tombs in the cemetery's northern enclosure; Lindsey's tomb was one of those selected for retention and relocation.