Bishops of Rochester at Westminster
/John Physick studies the careers of four bishops over the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries that also served as the Dean of Westminster. Featured in The Friends of Rochester Cathedral Annual Report for 1995-1996.
Unlike most of the cathedrals throughout the country, it is perhaps a little surprising that at Rochester the only monument to a bishop after the Reformation is that to Bishop John Warner (died 1666), the work of the Master-Mason to the Crown, Joshua Marshall. In fact, Warner was the last bishop to be buried in Rochester Cathedral. This needs an explanation for, after all, several of the bishops were well known - Bishop Thomas Sprat (died 1715), Bishop Francis Atterbury (died 1713 N.S.), Bishop Joseph Wilcocks (died 1756) and Bishop Zachary Pearce (died 1774), among them. All of these bishops are commemorated in Westminster Abbey, with monuments by some of the foremost sculptors of their time. Why their monuments are to be found in the Abbey is that, as Rochester was not a rich See, during the later 17th century and almost the whole of the 1 8th century, the Bishops of Rochester were also appointed to the Deanery of Westminster.
This, of course, gave them a reasonable income, and a town house in addition to their palace out in the country at Bromley.
John Dolben (1625-1686)
John Dolben who succeeded Bishop Warner in 1666, was the first bishop to be appointed Dean of Westminster as well. He became Archbishop of York in 1683, dying shortly afterwards in 1686, and is buried in the Minster where there is a large monument in the south choir aisle. He is represented in a semi-reclining position against a contrasting marble background on which are cherubs on a cloud. Unfortunately, there is no record of the sculptor.
Monument to Archbishop John Dolben at York Minster, 1688. Photo: Wikimedia
Thomas Sprat (1635-1713)
Westminter Abbey website
Explore photos and content on Bishop Sprat’s monument at Westminster Abbey on their website.
However, when Robert Adam in about 1777 designed a large monument to the Duchess of Northumberland in that chapel, Bishop Sprats memorial was moved to the western portion of the south nave aisle. The designer and sculptor was Francis Bird who, besides executing other monuments in the Abbey, was responsible for much work on St. Paul's Cathedral for Sir Christopher Wren, notably the sculpture in the pediment of the west front depicting the Conversion of St. Paul. Also commemorated on Bishop Sprat's monument is his son Thomas (died 1720), Canon of Westminster, and Archdeacon and Canon of Rochester. The Bishop was a founder Fellow of The Royal Society, of which he wrote a history of the Society's foundation and aims. The monument consists of a tablet with a lengthy Latin inscription, within an architectural frame and a coat of arms at the top, with another at the base. A close inspection of the incised inscription reveals that the letter-cutter employed by Francis Bird made several mistakes of spelling, which had to be rubbed down and recut. In the Bodleian Library, Oxford (MS. North, C11, F.222) is an interesting insight into Bird's lettering. A mason writing to Lord North in 1770 about another monument, stated that he would recut the inscription for one penny a letter 'as it should be done, which is what ye old one never was, nor indeed any of those things performed as they ought to be in Mr. Bird's shop from my knowledge'.
It will be remembered that Sprat was attached to the Jacobite cause, and during the reign of Queen Anne was falsely accused of plotting to dethrone her. This was due to a treasonable paper that had been found in a flower-pot at Bromley Palace, but Sprat was able to clear his name by proving that the signature had been a forgery.
Francis Atterbury (1662-1732)
Bean Sprat was succeeded by the controversial and lacobite Francis Alterbuy, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford. Although he assisted at the coronation of George I, Atterbury had attempted to engineer the proclamation of the Old Pretender as James III. For this he was sent to the Tower of London, deprived of all his offices and sent into perpetual exile in 1723. He died in Paris in 1732, and at his own request, buried in the Abbey 'as far from Kings and Caesars as the space wi permit of'. Bishop Atterbury does not have any monument except for his black marble grave-slab in the floor of the south nave aisle, at the west end.
Westminter Abbey website
Explore photos and content on Bishop Sprat’s monument at Westminster Abbey on their website.
Dean Stanley refers to an early and vague tradition that there was a secret room in the Deanery used by Bishop Atterbury for his Jacobite meetings. 'In 1864’, he wrote, 'on the removal of a slight partition, there was found a long empty closet, behind a fireplace, reached by a rude ladder, perfectly dark, and capable of holding eight or ten persons, but which, as far back as the memory of the inmates of the Deanery extended, had never been explored . . . In this chamber, which may have harboured the conspiracy of Abbot Colchester against Henry IV, it is probable that Atterbury was concealed in plotting against George I'.
Samuel Bradford (1652- 1731)
Atterbury, while still incarcerated in the Tower, was followed as Bishop of Rochester by the Bishop of Carlisle, Samuel Bradford, in 1723, who was appointed to the Deanery of Westminster at the same time. During his period at Westminster, the Order of the Bath was revived, and Bradford became its first Dean. He died in 1731, and was buried in the north transept, on the south wall of which is his monument by the sculptor Sir Henry Cheere, Bart.
Westminter Abbey website
Explore photos and content on Bishop Bradford’s monument at Westminster Abbey on their website.
Unlike today, Westminster Abbey was formerly surrounded by houses, and Henry Cheere leased from the Dean and Chapter one of them, between the Abbey and St. Margaret's Church, and it was here that he had set up his sculptor's yard probably in the late 1720s. Bradford's monument is one of the earliest of Cheere's works, and consists of a white marble tablet with the inscription in Latin, against a background of grey marble, surmounted by a pediment in which is a shield of arms, a mitre and floral sprays. On the base is the Star of the Order of the Bath between sprays of palm-leaves.
Joseph Wilcocks (1673-1756)
Bishop Bradford, was succeeded as Bishop of Rochester and Dean of Westminster in 1731 by Joseph Wilcocks, Bishop of Gloucester. During his twenty-five years at Westminster, Wilcocks instituted extensive repairs to the building, and commissioned the completion of the two western towers from Nicholas Hawksmoor. His monument, when he died in 1756, is another by Sir Henry Cheere and is more elaborate than that to Bishop Bradford.
Cheere was perhaps one of the earliest sculptors in this country to introduce a variety of coloured marbles and this is apparent in this memorial, which is of white and red marbles (though slightly damaged in part).
Westminter Abbey website
Explore photos and content on Bishop Wilcock’s monument at Westminster Abbey on their website.
It consists of a basement which has an enriched cornice and bowed angles enclosing pedestals on which are small figures of Faith and Hope. In front, within an oval, is a sculpted representation of the Abbey from the north-west, showing the new towers.
Detail, relief of Westminster Abbey, Bishop Wilcock’s monument.
Above are two cherubs, one of whom reads the epitaph lettered on a scroll held by the other. Behind is a crozier, mitre, cap and books, with, above, a cartouche of arms, from which spread festoons of flowers. In 1734 Cheere had been also the sculptor of all the decorative carving on the south-west tower. The son of Bishop Wilcocks later bequeathed a painting of the Abbey by Canaletto and a bust of Joseph Wilcocks by the sculptor Michael Rvsbrack. The painting is still in the Deanery at Westminster, but there is no bust. It might have been sent to Rochester, but a recent search has not revealed any trace of it. There are several monuments by sir Henry Cheere in Kent, at Chislehurst St. Nicholas, Otford, and Shoreham.
When he died in 1781, he was buried in the family vault in the churchyard of St. Paul's, Clapham, London. The large Portland stone family memorial with its biographical epitaphs was there twenty-five years ago, but a search in August 1995 showed that the churchyard had been cleared during the intervening years.
Zachary Pearce (1690-1774)
Zachary Pearce, Bishop of Bangor, succeeded both to Rochester and Westminster in 1756. He retired from the Deanery in 1768, but was not allowed to resign from the Bishopric of Rochester. When he died in 1774 at Bromley, where he is buried, his cenotaph in the Abbey was sculpted by William Tyler (founder member of the Royal Academy), in about 1777 and this is an inscribed base, above which is a white marble pedestal, with a chalice and paten in low relief, surmounted by a bust, to the sides are Old and New Testaments and a mitre, all against a black marble background. The inscription, in Latin, as was usual during the century, was composed by Pearce's successor, John Thomas.
Westminter Abbey website
Explore photos and content on Bishop Pearce’s monument at Westminster Abbey on their website.
William Tyler had been an assistant to the foremost sculptor of the time in England, the Frenchman Louis-François Roubiliac, and there are monuments by him in Kent at Mersham, Eastry and Sevenoaks.
Bishop Pearce was involved in two controversies at the Abbey concerning monuments. After the death of General Wolfe at Quebec in 1759, it was proposed by the King and Parliament in the 1770s that they should erect a monument to him. The site selected, beside the high altar, was occupied by the splendid medieval monument to Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke (d. 1324), a cousin of Edward I. Pearce agreed, as he understood that Avmer had been a Knight Templar, 'a very wicked set of people'. The protest against this destruction was led by Horace Walpole and eventually Pearce gave way when he was told that he had been misinformed as Aymer had not been a Templar. At about the same time,
Zachary Pearce was considering the re-ordering of the sanctuary, which would probably have removed the tomb of Edward the Confessor and other royal tombs - those of Henry III, Edward I, Edward III, Richard Il among them. To us today, such a scheme might seem unbelievable, but only a short time earlier, a writer on the City and Westminster had stated that 'the enclosure behind the altar, commonly known by the name of St.
Edward's Chapel, has nothing remarkable in it but certain Gothique antiquities, which are made sacred by tradition only, and serve to excite a stupid admiration in the vulgar'. However, as Pearce was not able to obtain the unanimous approval of the full Chapter to such a controversial decision, his proposal fortunately was abandoned.
John Thomas (1712-1793)
Following Zachary Pearce, the next Bishop and Dean was John Thomas from 1774, and during his tenure was held the centenary Handel concert in June
1784. It is said that more than ten thousand people tried to enter the Abbey for the concert, which was attended by George Ill and Queen Charlotte, but the only damage seems to have been to 'dishevelled hair and torn garments'. There was controversy later about the date of the concert, as Handel was born on 23 February 1684 (Old Style) which equates today with 1685, owing to the change in the calendar during the mid-18th century. As time passed Bishop Thomas became increasingly infirm and went to the Palace at Bromley and did not attend any more meetings of the Westminster Chapter. He died at Bromley in 1793, buried at Bletchingley and his memorial in the Abbey is near many of his decanal predecessors, towards the west end of the south nave aisle. The sculptor was John Bacon junior and is of white and grey marbles, comprising an inscribed pedestal with a bust, based on a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and a relief of the Holy Lamb. With on either side a chalice, paten and other emblems of the Eucharist, with a mitre and crozier behind. The monument was designed as a pair to that of the neighbouring memorial to the Bishop-Dean, Pearce.
Westminter Abbey website
Explore photos and content on Bishop Wilcock’s monument at Westminster Abbey on their website.
John Bacon junior was the sculptor of the monument to Lady Heniker in the south nave aisle of Rochester Cathedral.
Samuel Horsley (1733-1806)
The last in the series of Bishops of Rochester who were also Deans of Westminster was Samuel Horsley, a Fellow and sometime Secretary of the Roval Society and Bishop of Bangor. He succeeded Bishop Thomas in 1793, but was translated to St. Asaph in 1802. The Bishop seems to have been something of an autocrat, for decisions recorded in the Abbey archives often state We, the Dean, do peremptorily command and enjoin . . .'
There is no monument to him at Westminster, although a portrait is within the collections.
Westminter Abbey website
Find out more about Bishop Horsley at Westminster Abbey on their website.
The Bishop, who was also the incumbent of St. Mary, Newington Butts, London, died at Brighton and was buried at Newington.
Physick
Bibliography
Rupert Gunnis, Dictionary of British Sculptors 1660-1851, revised typescript U. Physick in the Henry Moore Centre, Leeds
Dean A. P. Stanley, Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey (Fifth edition), 1882
N. H. MacMichael, Westminster Abbey, Official Guide, 1977
Edward Carpenter, A House of Kings, 1966
G. H. Palmer, The Cathedral Church of Rochester, 1897
A. Murray Smith, Westminster Abbey; its story and associations, 1906
A. Murray Smith, The Roll-Call of Westminster Abbey, 1903
Chales Hiatt, The Abbey and Church of Westminster, 1906
Christopher Wilson et al, Westminster Abbey, 1986
Thomas Cocke, 900 Years; The restorations of Westminster Abbey, 1995
Footnotes
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1 Corrected from ‘1685’.
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