Description

635-1/0/10221 BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND
21-FEB-11 Monument to Henry Hunter, Middle enclo
sure

GV II*
Obelisk and chest tomb of Henry Hunter, dated 1801, by Coade and Sealy of Lambeth

LOCATION: 532701.6, 182249.8

MATERIALS: Coade stone on Portland stone plinth over brick vault.

DESCRIPTION: The monument takes the form of a squat obelisk of whitewashed Coade stone with a flared and moulded base, set upon a rectangular chest with raised side panels and end projections in the form of sarcophagi. The structure rests upon a stone plinth with a brick vault beneath. The main text is on the southern side panel, and describes in aureate language Hunter's achievements and qualities, expressing the hope that when 'finally sinking under the pressure of years / THIS PILLAR / shall tremble and fall over the dust it covers, his Name shall be transmitted to Generations unborn'. The north panel commemorates Hunter's wife Margaret, their son Henry and daughter Christian. The base is inscribed with the name of the manufacturer (Coade and Sealy of Lambeth) and the date 1801. The monument was originally surrounded by railings and topped with an urn finial, both of which have now been lost.

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.

Henry Hunter (1742-1802) was a Church of Scotland minister, writer and translator. Born in Perthshire and educated at Edinburgh University, he began his career as a private tutor in various aristocratic households, before being ordained as minister of South Leith in 1762. He came to London seven years later, and in 1771 he was appointed as minister to the Scottish congregation at London Wall. Around the same time, his old university awarded him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. Aside from a number of sermons and collections of lectures, his main published work consisted of translations of modern European texts, including the first English translation of Johann Caspar Lavater's influential Essays on Physiognomy. He died at Bristol in 1802, having previously witnessed the deaths of five of his eight children.

Coade stone, a type of ceramic used in imitation of marble, was first manufactured by Eleanor Coade in 1769 at a factory in Lambeth on the present site of the Royal Festival Hall. It proved extremely popular for both free-standing sculpture and architectural ornament thanks to its ease of manufacture and resistance to weather and pollution, and Mrs Coade - who had gone into partnership with her cousin John Sealy in 1799 - gained royal appointments from George III and the Prince Regent. The Coade factory finally ceased production in around 1840.

SOURCES: Corporation of London, A History of the Bunhill Fields Burial Ground (1902).
A W Light, Bunhill Fields (London, 1915).
Gordon Goodwin, rev. Anita McConnell, entry on Hunter in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, www.oxforddnb.com (retrieved on 9 June 2009).
Alison Kelly, Mrs Coade's Stone (Upton-upon-Severn, 1990)

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The monument to Henry Hunter is listed at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:
* It is a highly imposing architecturally-conceived monument, demonstrating the contemporary vogue for Coade stone.
* It commemorates a prominent writer and translator of the late C18, author of the first English translation of Lavater's Essays on Physiognomy.
* 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 middle enclosure.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17552263

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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