The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-07-12 00:00:00

THE FUNERAL OF LORD LAWRENCE.

On Saturday the mortal remains of Lord Lawrence, the
great Indian administrator, were laid in a tomb in the nave
of Westminster Abbey, close to the graves of Outram and
Clyde.—The following account of the impressive ceremony
Ls from the Standard of Monday :

" ' John Lawrence of the Punjaub ' was carried to
his grave in a manner singularly appropriate to the
severe dignity of his character and the modest splen-
dour of his career. Round his tomb was collected a
great multitude of his countrymen and countrywomen
—soldiers, sailors, statesmen ; men who have proved
themselves worthy pillars of the Empire in every
quarter of the world, who have already immortalised
their names on foreign battle. fields, or who have
added a new lustre to the humbler services of
civil life. It was right that Lord Lawrence should
rest in the burial ground of Kings and Princes,
great generals, great administrators, deathless orators,
philosophers, and bards. This much he may fairly
have anticipated for himself, and probably he would
have wished or expected nothing more. The last
occasion on which a famous Indian public servant
received the distinguished rite of sepulture in West-
minster Abbey was when Sir George Pollock, who
ended his days as Constable of the Tower, and whose
intrepid zeal had in years gone by retrieved the
honours of a disastrous Afghan campaign, was laid
by the side of the "Lion of India," Colin Campbell,
Lord Clyde, who had put down the Mutiny, and who
was already sleeping within those venerable precincts.
It is close to this spot, immediately opposite the
pulpit, not far from the stone which proclaims the
resting-place of Sir James Outram, near where moulder
the ashes of Isaac Newton, Charles Barry, Robert
Stephenson, that there will be found the grave of Lord
Lawrence, the latest of a long list of men who, after a
lifetime devoted to the building up of the fabric of
England's Eastern Empire,have found the "recompense
of their toils and dangers" which Bulwer esteemed
not inadequate; or who, if their bodies are elsewhere,
have here their exploits marked by monumental stone
or effigy. In the single chapel, as it now is, of St.
John, St. Michael, and St. Andrew, are the tablets
that tell us of the deeds of Captain Edward Cooke,
who perished of the wounds received when, in 1750, he
captured the French frigate La Forte, in the Bay of
Bengal; and of Sir George Pocock, the hero of Chan-
dernagore, who fell two years later. In the north
transept are buried, or are commemorated, Sir John
Malcolm, the soldier, statesman, and patriot, "who
could descend, without feeling that he sank, from the
command of armies and the government of an Empire
to become a peace-maker in village quarrels ;" Lord
Canning, Viceroy of India, hard by his illustrious
father, who died plain George Canning; General
Sir Eyre Coote, who expelled the French from the
coast oi Coromandel and defeated the forces of Ryder
Ally, and who is immortalised by a huge and not too
tasteful device of Victory hanging the medallion of a
hero upon a trophy, while the Mahratta captive and
the little elephant in front recall the scene of the
exploit ; Warren Hastings, whose mortal remains lie
at Daylesford ; Sir Herbert Edwardes, the hero of
the Punjaub ; Vice Admiral Charles Watson, who
delivered the prisoners in the Black Hole at
Calcutta; Sir Stamford Raffles, Governor of Java;
Sir George Staunton, who concluded the Treaty with
Tippoo Seib in 1784. Such is the company of Anglo-
Indian celebrities, to which must now be added the
name of Lord Lawrence.

"If his funeral on Saturday last was not technically
a public one, it was certainly a national one. Among
the crowd which filled the nave and choir were many
famous and familiar faces. There were countenances
bronzed by the sun and eloquent of a life passed in
those tropical latitudes where John Lawrence's
name was once accepted as that of a present di-
vinity. The civil as well as the military servants of
the Crown mustered in great force, and in addition
to those identified with the functions of government
was a large contingent of persons who, it may be pre-
sumed, represented definite Indian interests, but whose
interests were not of an official character. It was signi-
ficant, it was even pathetic, to note in the crowd faces
whose dusky hue proclaimed their Eastern origin. There
were several Hindus who had come that they might
pay their tribute of respect to the man whose name
was in his time a household word from one end of cur
Indian Empire to the other. At half-past eleven
o'clock the Abbey was crowded and silent. In the
nave immediately opposite the place selected for the
interment were rows of seats, four deep occupied by
some hundred persons. As one passed into the choir,
'the stalls on either side were filled with gentlemen
and ladies clothed in the deepest black. Some break,
however, in the show of dusky mourning there was.
Scarlet uniforms were not wanting, and while their
appearance constituted a relief, it seemed at the same
time to intensify the melancholy of the pitchy pre-
dominance of hue.

"All this time the silence was profound. Not a ray
of sunshine strayed into the dim recesses of the build-
ing. The statues on the northern side of the choir
wore a spectral appearance, but seemed scarcely more
motionless than the living and breathing men and
women gathered round them. At a quarter to twelve
the Dean of Westminster walked quickly up the
aisle, said a few words to one of the attendants, and
disappeared. The low, plaintive notes of funereal music
broke out and seemed to take possession of the entire
edifice. Then there were silence and expectancy once
more. The midday chimes of the Abbey sounded
forth, the great clock struck once, twice—thrice—
twelve times, and within as many seconds as one
might count on the fingers of a single hand the
clear notes of the voice of the Dean of Westminster
were heard in the nave beyond—`l am the resur-
rection and the life, saith the Lord; he that believeth
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and
whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.'
Every syllable of this was distinctly audible, and the
solemn sentences produced an emotion that was equally
touching and spontaneous throughout the assemblage.
The funeral procession was about to enter the choir.
The Dean led the way. There, at the head of the
procession itself, were Sir Charles Brownlow, who
carried Lord Lawrence's orders, and General Reynell
Taylor, who bore the coronet, both on cushions of
crimson velvet. Immediately afterwards cams the
coffin, covered with the light blue cloak of a Knight of
the Star of India as pall. Upon the silken coverlet there
rested wreathes of inamortelles and stephanotis, lilies
and laurels. The pall-bearers, moving at measured pace,
with noiseless tread, beside the coffin, were eight of
the closest intimates of the once Governor General of
India. To the left were General Beecher, Sir Wm.
Muir, K.C.S.L, Lord Napier of Magdala, and the
Earl of Shaftesbury; and on the right, Sir Henry
Norman, Sir Robert Montgomery, Lord Northbrook,
and Sir Stafford Northcote. The military men of this
little escort were in uniform, with medals and decora-
tions. Behind came a train of mourners belonging to
Lord Lawrence's family, the chief place being taken
by the present baron, the successor to the title, who
was accompanied by his mother. Lady Lawrence, the
Hon. Mrs, H. A. Lawrence, the Hon. Maud Lawrence,
the Hon. Hubert Lawrence, Colonel and the Hon.
Mrs. Randall (eldest daughter of the late peer), Rev.
C. and Hon. Mrs. Walford, Miss Gaster, Mr. Buxton,
Dr. and Mrs. Goodall, Sir G. and Lady Young, Dr,
Kennedy, Sir Erskine Perry, Sir James and Lady
Stephen, Colonel and Mrs. Jeffre)s, Captain East-
wick and other private friends."

Here follows a list of the general body of mourners,
amongst whom were—Lord Torrington, who represented
her Majesty the Queen; Baron Solvyns, who represented the
King of the Belgians ; the Archbishop of York, Lord Cardwell,
Lord Cranbrook, Lord Derby, Lord Granville, Lord Ernly,
Lord Harrowby, Lord O'Harran, Earl Fortescue, Lord Leigh,
the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M P., the Speaker of the
House of Commons, the Right Hon. Robert Lowe, 1.P.,5 Sir
L. Mallet, Professor Fawcett, M.P , Sir E. Buxton, Sir J.
Fayrer, Sir Cecil Beadon, Sir Henry Rawlinson, Sir Douglas
Forsyth, Colonel Yule, Hon E. Drummond, Sir Lewis Petty,
General R. Strachey, Sir E. Clive Bayley, Sir John Adye,

"Lord Cranbrook and Sir Stafford Northcote, as
well as the pall-bearers, remained close by the coffin
during the whole of that portion of the service which
was celebrated in the choir. The majority of the re-
mainder took up their position in the space in front of
the reredos. The spectacle now presented was impres-
sive in the extreme. There, on the velvet-covered
tressles, in a line with the statue of Peel, lay the body
of the man to whose life and memory all present had
come to do honour. The gloom of the Abbey was pro-
found, and the atmosphere was full of reverence and
awe. Again the notes of the choir were heard, and
there pealed forth from the organ a hymn of mourn-
ing and praise. These echoes had scarcely died
away when the opening sentence of the lesson
was heard, and just as the words by man came also
the resurrection of the dead ' were uttered, the first flash
of sunshine which had been visible that day suddenly
penetrated the Abbey. Its multi-coloured rays fell
full upon the sculptured effigies of famous men, on the
coffin and the little group of pall-bearers gathered
round it, and on the mourners beyond. Its appear-
ance produced a visible effect, and perhaps there were
some who recognised in its swift and glad effinlgence
as sure an intimation of immortality as Wordsworth
discerned in the recollections of childhood. The
lesson came to an end. There was a minute's
interval of silent prayer or meditation, interrupted
by more than one sob. The last and the
most solemnly pathetic part of the ceremony still re-
mained. The coffin had yet to be committed to the
newly-dug grave. The procession formed anew, and
the place of sepulture was reached. Once again an
interval of breathless silence, and again the interrup-
tion of that silence by the utterance of the sacred
words. Again, music gave relief to a sentiment almost
too overwrought. Then there was another pause. The
coffin was lowered into the newly-dug grave, and Dean
Stanley's solemn voice was heard pronouncing the
most impressive words of the English Church Service,
"Earth to earth, ashes to aehes, dust to dust." No one
who heard on Saturday the tone in which these words
were pronounced will ever forget it, and ere they had
died away there seemed to come yet a second time
what it seemed a not altogether idle superstition to in-
terpret as an omen full of happiness and hope.
Another sunbeam shot its radiance through the painted
windows and lighted up the scene. All eyes were lifted
upwards, nor had the splendour died away when the
Dean of Westminster read the final prayer and the
choir chanted the last hymn, Then followed the bene-
diction, which went home to the hearts of all; more
flowers and wreaths were poured into the dark void,
and the touching because natural, spontaneous, and
unadorned ceremony was at an end. The brass plate
on the coffin bore the inscription, "John Laird Mair,
first Baron Lawrence, died June 27, 1879, at;ed 68
Years."

In Westminster Abbey, on Sunday afternoon, at the choral
service at three o'clock, Dean Stanley preached in the choir
on the impressive event of the previous day —We take the
following condensation of his sernimn from The Times. The
Dean took as his text the words in Joshua
"Be strong and of good courage, for unto this people shalt
thou divide for an inheritance the land which I aware unto
their fathero to give them. Only be thou strong and very
courageous, that thou rnayest observe to do according to all
the law which Moses my servant ccmmanded thee: turn not
from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest
prosper whitheraoever thou ;Nest."

Dean Stanley said :—There are few more saddening
thoughts and elporlence4 of human life than the sight
of great opportunities offered and lost, of characters
suddenly breaking down, of the ruin effected by the
want of vigilance and firmness. We see the panic of
armies, when the boldest lobe their heads, and, from
mere bewilderment and confusion, precious lives and
noble causes are thrown away.
.Wesee Churches wasting
days and weeks and years In discussion on the most

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