Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey, in London, has been the coronation church since 1066 and is the resting place of several British monarchs. The present building was begun in 1245. The Abbey is also famous for Poets Corner, where over 100 poets are buried or commemorated, beginning with Geoffrey Chaucer who was the first poet to be buried there. Nineteenth-century notables include Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Timeline of Events Associated with Westminster Abbey

Date Event Manage
19 Apr 1882

Death of Charles Darwin

Photograph of Charles DarwinDeath of Charles Darwin on 19 April 1882. Darwin’s friends and supporters arrange for his burial in Westminster Abbey as a mark of the importance and respectability of his life and ideas. Image: Henry Maull and John Fox, Photograph of Charles Darwin (c. 1854). This image is in the public domain in the United States because its copyright has expired.

Related Articles

Nancy Armstrong, “On Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man, 24 February 1871″

Ian Duncan, “On Charles Darwin and the Voyage of the Beagle”

Anna Henchman, “Charles Darwin’s Final Book on Earthworms, 1881”

Martin Meisel, "On the Age of the Universe"

Cannon Schmitt, “On the Publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, 1859″

Jonathan Smith, “The Huxley-Wilberforce ‘Debate’ on Evolution, 30 June 1860″

Daniel Bivona, “On W. K. Clifford and ‘The Ethics of Belief,’ 11 April 1876″

12 Autumn 1892

Alfred Lord Tennyson's Funeral

On this day, Alfred Lord Tennyson was buried at Westminster Abbey in a service conducted by George Bradley, a personal friend. The attached image is a photograph of the funeral pall designed by Edith Rawnsley. Edith Rawnsley also wrote a hymn praising Tennyson which was included in a collection of sonnets and other items related to Tennyson's death (including the attached photograph) gathered (and largely composed) by her husband, Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley.

To read a related blog post, click here: http://blogs.baylor.edu/19crs/2020/01/15/hymning-tennyson…onal-hagiography/