The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-01-13 00:00:00

MEMORIAL CHAPEL TO THE LATE
EARL OF DERBY.

A stranger visiting Knowsley Church on Sunday
morning would (says the Lirerpoul Mercury) for sorne
time, at least, have failed to observe that the day was
associated with any unusual occurrence ; yet the service
was connected with an event of special interest to the
locality, and not altogether uninteresting, probably, to
many throughout the nation. Edward Geoff reyStanley,
the fourteenth and late Earl of Derby, was no less
distinguished for his high intellectual attainments
and statesmanship than for the nobility of disposition
and the kindly feeling which were evinced towards all
with whom he came in contact. None experienced the
force of these excellent qualities more, pethaps, than
the tenants with whom he had not unfregnent personal
intercourse in the management of his extensive estate at
Knowsley, and therefore it was with the most poignant
sorrow they mourned his death now more than two
years since. Soon after that sad event a very general
desire was manifested by the tenantry and a large
number of other friends in the neighbourhood to
record in a lasting manner their respect and esteem
for his memory, and ultimately it was decided to add
to the parish church at Knowsley a cbantry or mtmorial
chapel containing a statue of the late earl. The new
chapel was inaugurated on Sunday morning, and allu-
sion was appropriately made in the course of the sermon
to the late earl, whose memory was more especially re-
called by the interesting event of that day. The total
cost of the memorial chapel is about Db 000, of which
nearly £l,OOO has been expended on the statue and
tomb. At the service on Sunday morning there was a
large attendance. The congregation included the Earl
and Countess of Derby and family. Service was con-
ducted by the Bishop of Chester; the Rev. Edward
Hornby. rector of Fury; the Rev. William leilden,
rector of Knowsley. and the Rev. J. B. Bolton, curate
of the parish and private chaplain to the Earl of Derby.

The Liverpool Courier reports s portion of the serm.,n
preached by the Rev. Canon Hornby, from Epliesiuns,
v. 21, as follows
"in the hearts of many of ne to-day there must he loving
memories of him to keep alive whose record the chapel has

been built which forms so beautiful an addition to this
church. And I wculd turn for a few minutes to his life as
an illustration of what I have said. Surely, if any man could
glory in the gifts and greatnesses of this world he would
have had as much cause as any. If any man ever had the
temptation to exult in and rely upon those large endowments
of intellect the danger may well have been his--to delight
himself unduly in those wonderful powers of eloquence,
in—
" Genius high and lore profound
And wit that loved to play, not wound
And every varying power divine
To penetrate, resolve, combine ;
And feelings keen, and fancy's glow,
Which sleeps w ith him a ho sleeps below :
and to look upon himself as no much above the ordinary
measure of men that he was not expected to descend to their
level, anti to submit himself to their needs. Think stint the
dangerous delight most have been of feeling oneself carried
away by one's own inherent power on the stream of that
mire and lucid (low of words by which so many have been en-
tranced or stirred, so ,dear that you could see through them
every eddy and turn of thought, so powerful that they up-
held and bore along to their aecomplishment the greatest,
the most benevolent, and the must Christian measures. And
yet was not his life one of subjection to others? I mean in
the sense that there was nu indolence, no self indulgence
alsmt at; that it was shortened probably by the energy which
disdained inglorious idleness, and would wear out rather
than rust .utt ; that here especially the momunents remain
of thought and care for those beneath him—in this
very elturch, a common work of his predecessors and
himself, in the sellouts. in the benovolent societies, in his
plans that those who depended on him should not be de-
pendents on mere charity, but should be encouraged to
save and care and labour by their own providence and
forethought, fostered and furthered by him. And this
was not done only from natural kindness of heart, but
from a conscientious sense of duty, from a conviction
that God hail net him hi a high station expressly
that he niight be a beacon and a guide, and that if he had
great powers he had also great responsibilities. For
those who knew him better than I did will bear me witness
that, to use his own express words, he was ever acting under
a sense of stewardship that the ruling principle of his life
was that he was acting in trust for God, and that he was
bound to see that his talents of power and wealth were to be
administered in the tears! the Lord and for the welfare of his
fellows. It is for those good deeds that we shall reverence his
memory here. The nation at large, which he served for half
a century—the country, which in a time of commercial trial
and distress was specially Indebted to hint—they will honour
him for his public acts anti merits. And well they may. For
It he had studied his own inclinations only he would have
lingered here among his books, or wandered in the woods,
whose 'every alley green, dingle, and bosky dell,' he knew by
heart. his monument here will not be alone in stone and
warble, hut in the grateful affection of tenants and labourers,
whose best interests he was ever striving to promote. And
to labourers, and tenants, and servants, and, above all, to
heads of departments, let that memory still speak as all
incentive to the same conscientious discharge of duty, as
an exhortation to the same ever present sense that we are
all workers under God in our several places, Ire they high or
low. God forbid that the retainers of this great house, that
the tenantry of these large estates, should ever forget the
watch-word of their clan, should ever be untrue to the
gallant, loyal, faithful devotion in which of old they gathered
round the banner of their lord, anti raised the cry of 'Stanley
for ever' on many a well-fought field."