Two ledgerstones within All Saints church, together with two in its churchyard and four tombs in Hardwick Road Cemetery, bring together two well-known South Lynn families and exemplify the changes in burial customs that the middling sort had to bear as a result of the Burial Acts of 1852 and 1854.

The graves within All Saints church can be found side by side at the west end of the nave north aisle. That on the left reads

IN MEMORY OF

ROBERT

Son of ROBERT and

ELIZA SARAH COOK

who departed this Life

December 20, 1831,

Aged 4 Years.

and that to its right:

IN MEMORY OF

ELIZA CATHERINE

DAUGHTER OF

HENRY HOUGHTON

AND

CATHERINE COOK,

WHO DIED

OCTOBER 24, 1842,

AGED 5 YEARS.

Close to the west door is a full-size slate ledgerstone capping a brick grave with the inscription:

IN MEMORY OF

HENRY WILLIAM COOK

Son of

HENRY HOUGHTON & CATHERINE COOK

WHO DIED

JANUARY 31^ST 1853

Aged 13 Years

whilst to its right is another slate headstone above a brick grave inscribed:

SACRED

TO THE MEMORY OF

JOSEPH WALES

SHIP BUILDER AND OWNER

WHO DIED APRIL 3, 1822,

AGED 62 YEARS.

ALSO OF

ELIZABETH, RELICT OF THE

ABOVE-NAMED JOSEPH WALES,

WHO DIED

NOVEMBER 15, 1829,

AGED 60.

Thus Henry William Cook was the younger brother of Eliza Catherine Cook, who lies buried at the west end of the nave north aisle, and cousin to Robert Cook Jnr, though the latter had already dead for nine years prior to Henry William Cook’s birth in 1840. Joseph and Elizabeth Wales were the grandparents of Robert Cook Jnr, Eliza Catherine Cook and Henry William Cook and the parents of the deceased children’s mothers.

The Wales family lived at Welwick House, a seven-bay two-story red-brick Georgian building of 1726 to the south-west of All Saints church in All Saints Street. It was a fine and dignified building, but it became a casualty of the clearance effected in 1970 for the sake of Hillington Square. What makes its loss so tragic is that it was in good condition in 1970; the irony is that its place was taken by a car park.

In 1777 the house was purchased by John Gamble. His daughter, Elizabeth, married Joseph Wales, ship builder, ship owner and merchant, and they moved into the house following James Gamble’s death in 1796. Joseph Wales died in 1822 and his widow, Elizabeth, made a settlement of the property in 1827 to her daughter Eliza Sarah, the year in which Eliza Sarah had married the Lynn merchant and ship owner, Robert Cook. A similar settlement was made in 1829 on the marriage of another daughter, Catherine Wales, with Henry Houghton Cook, the brother and business partner of Robert. In all, Joseph and Elizabeth Wales had five children: Joseph, Eliza Sarah, Catherine, a Miss Cook (described in 1827 as of Tuesday Market Place) and a Mrs H A Leake.

Robert Cook was a member of the Town Council and Mayor in 1856, the year in which Hardwick Cemetery opened. Henry Houghton Cook was a Paving Commissioner. Cook’s Creek, next to Common Staithe, takes its name from these brothers, who introduced the town’s first coastal steam ship, The Fairy, trading from King’s Lynn to Hull.

From the above, we can ascertain that the two infants whose bodies lie within All Saints church were cousins, their mothers were sisters and their fathers were brothers. As their parents were members of the middling sort, both infants would have been afforded intramural burial. However, when Henry and Catherine Cook’s second child and eldest son, Henry, died in 1853 he was buried in the churchyard, adjacent to his maternal grandparents, as intramural burial had been forbidden as a result of the Burial Act of 1852.

With the adoption of Hardwick Road Cemetery in 1855 by the Borough of King’s Lynn, the town’s churchyards were closed to further burial by Order in Council, which is explains why Eliza and Robert Cook, Catherine and Henry Houghton Cook are buried side by side in Section D at Hardwick Road Cemetery.

Against the boundary hedge is the grey granite obelisk of Robert and Eliza, the raised lettering reading, on its south face

IN MEMORY OF

ROBERT COOK

OF KING’S LYNN

WHO DIED

25^TH DECEMBER 1884

AGED 86 YEARS

and on its west face:

IN MEMORY OF

ELIZA SARAH

THE BELOVED WIFE OF

ROBERT COOK

OF KING’S LYNN

WHO DIED 20^TH SEPTEMBER 1874

AGED 73 YEARS 

Immediately in front of this monument is a granite plinth with a raised white marble ledger along which lies a foliated cross entwined with a ribbon whose lead lettering reads THERE THE WEARY BE AT REST. The inscription runs the length of the south and east sides of the ledger: 

CAROLINE, THE DEARLY LOVED WIFE OF HENRY HOUGHTON COOK, WHO DIED

AUGUST 14^TH 1869,

AGED 64 YEARS.

ALSO OF THE ABOVE, HENRY HOUGHTON COOK, WHO DIED 12^TH FEBRUARY 1876, AGED 76 YEARS.

But this is not the end of the story, for to the left (west) of this monument is a tall, modest, white marble headstone inscribed

IN

LOVING MEMORY

OF

MARGARET

YOUNGER DAUGHTER

OF HENRY HOUGHTON COOK

OF KING’S LYNN

WHO DIED 11^TH FEBRUARY 1923

AGED 77 YEARS.

WITH CHRIST

WHICH IS FAR BETTER.

From this inscription we can ascertain that Margaret remained a spinster and was the sole surviving child at the time of her parents’ deaths in 1869 and 1876. She would have been 23 years of age when her mother died in 1869, and 30 in 1876 at the time of her father’s death. As she had been born in 1846, she would have been six years old when her brother, Henry William, died in 1853, but she would not have known her elder sister, Eliza Catherine, who had died the year before her birth.

To the right (east) of the Cook family tombs is another raised ledger in white marble, signed Henry Brown, London Road, inscribed

 IN AFFECTIONATE MEMORY OF

JOSEPH WALES, ESQUIRE

WHO DIED THE 16^TH DAY OF MARCH 1892

AGED 88 YEARS.

THY WILL O LORD, NOT MINE BE DONE

 This marks the grave of Joseph Wales Jnr, the brother of Caroline Houghton Cook and Eliza Sarah Cook, and uncle to Robert Cook Jnr (d.1831), Eliza Catherine Cook (d.1842), Henry William Cook (d.1853) and Margaret Houghton Cook (d.1923).  

Incidentally, the Welwick House settlement of 1827 mentions that the building had been in the occupation of the Misses Raven since 1813, who carried on school in the house. One of these sisters, Sophia Raven, married Commander Thomas Curtis RN (b.1773; d.1855) and they lived in the house until 1844 when it became Lynn Museum, its first resident curator being the Lynn antiquary, William Taylor, who had been instrumental some twenty years earlier in restoring the original medieval font to All Saints church. Commander Thomas and Mrs Sophia Curtis are buried in Section C of Hardwick Road Cemetery beneath a fine chest-tomb sculpted by William Brown of London Road. The south window in the south transept at All Saints, by William Wailes and depicting Christ Walking on the Waters, was given by Mrs Sophia Curtis in 1856 in memory of her husband. Commander Curtis’s sister, Hannah (b.1806; d.1892) was housekeeper to Joseph Wales Jnr. and predeceased him by five hours on 16^th March 1892.

Julian Litten

September 2010