Some brief notes and images.
This work is ongoing and will be added to as more information turns up.
Henry Cheere seemed to have something of a monopoly in providing the monuments for Naval Officers.
Admiral Sir Thomas Hardy. Captain Phillip de Sausmaurez, in Westminster Abbey, Malloy Monument at Shadoxhust, Matthew Michell at Chitterne etc.
Captain William Cust, of the Boston, who, with the
Rear Admiral's permission, was serving as a volunteer on board the Elizabeth,
He was killed in action 8 March 1748 at Port Louis, Hispaniola (now the Island of Haiti and Porto Rico)
The family of Captain William Cust, who according to surviving
correspondence were deeply affected by his death, channelled all of their
feelings of loss into a punctilious concern that the bust upon his monument
(erected Grantham, Lincolnshire 1749) should be a good likeness (Silent Rhetoric - Craske Yale 2007).
Henry Cheere, was made to repeat his terracotta sketches of William's
bust more than three times in order to achieve the chosen effect for the funeral
monument erected at Grantham.
On July 18th 1747 Peregrine Cust wrote from the
family house in Downing Street to his family in Lincolnshire that he had:"been
to see Cheere, the statuary, who has two busts of my late brother, both unlike,
he is making a third from Sir John's picture which does not promise to be like.
Notable for the mention of the maquettes or models.
...................................
The Mural Monument to Commodore Matthew Mitchell.
All Saints Church, Chitterne, Wiltshire.
c.1753/3.
Photographs taken by the author.
Written by Sir John Knox Laughton Naval Historian; Professor
of Modern History, King's College, London.
MICHELL or MITCHELL, MATTHEW (d. 1752),
commodore, was promoted to be lieutenant of the Advice with Captain William
Martin [q. v.] on 11 April 1729. He afterwards served in the Royal Oak and
Ipswich, and in August 1738 was promoted to the command of the Terrible bomb,
employed in the North Sea.
In 1740 he commanded the Swift sloop in the Channel;
and in June 1740 was posted to the Pearl frigate, one of the squadron which, on
18 Sept. 1740, sailed for the South Seas under the command of Commodore George (afterwards
Lord) Anson [q. v.]
At Madeira he was moved into the Gloucester of 50 guns, the
only ship of force, besides the Centurion, which doubled Cape Horn and reached
Juan Fernandez. The sufferings of her crew from scurvy and want of water had
been very great, and many men had died. When the few survivors had recovered
their health, and with such reinforcements as circumstances permitted, the
Gloucester rejoined the commodore off Paita in November 1741, continued with
him during the remainder of his cruise on the American coast, and sailed with
him for China. The sickness broke out again worse than before, and in a violent
storm the ship lost her topmasts and sprang a leak. With jury-topmasts she
sailed so badly as to endanger the safety of her consort; she had only sixteen
men and eleven boys able, in any way, to do duty, and many of these were sick.
She had seven feet of water in the hold, and there were no means of freeing her
or of stopping the leak. It was therefore determined to abandon her and set her
on fire.
Michell, with the miserable remnant of his ship's company, went on in
the Centurion to Macao, whence he took a passage home in a Swedish ship. He
arrived in England in June 1743, and in October was appointed to the Worcester,
in which he joined the fleet under Sir John Norris in January 1743-4.
He was afterwards commodore of a small squadron on the coast of Flanders and
off Dunkirk, on which service he continued until March 1748, when, on the plea
that his private affairs required his presence in England, he was permitted to
resign his command.
In 1747 he was elected member of parliament for Westbury.
He died 'in the prime of life,' 29 April 1752.
He married in 1749 Frances,
daughter of Mr. Ashfordby of Norfolk Street, London, with whom, it was
announced, he received a fortune of £20,000.
For a brief history of the two Churches, formerly at Chitterne see-
.........................
Admiral Sir Charles Malloy.
Shaddoxhurst, Kent.
Henry Cheere.
1760.
......................
Sir Thomas Hardy.
Henry Cheere.
It was designed by Sir Henry Cheere in 1737 as a match for
that to John Conduitt which is on the other side of the west door.
Still very much in the Gibbsian, Rysbrack tradition.
Westminster Abbey.
Inscribed -
Near the west door of the Choir lieth interr'd the body of
Sr THOMAS HARDY Knt. who died the 16 of August 1732 in the 67 year of his life
and according to the directions of his will was buried in the same grave with
his wife, who died the 28 of April 1720. He was born in Jersey and descended
from Clement Le Hardy who removed from France and settled in that island, and
was made a Justice (commonly call'd there a Jurat) in 1381, and was succeeded
in the same office by his son and grandson: his great grandson Clement was made
a Leiutenant Governor, and had the office of Bailiff (or cheif magistrate) of
the island, with the Seigneurie de Meleche confer'd upon him for life by Henry
the 7, as a reward for the most important service he had rendered him when Earl
of Richmond, after the disappointment he had met with in his first attempt upon
England, where being separated from the rest of his fleet by a storm he landed
privately in Jersey, intending to stay there till he could obtain leave from
the French king to come into his dominions, and was shelter'd at the house of
the said Clement, who protected him and convey'd him safely to Normandy at the
hazard of his own life, notwithstanding a proclamation from Richard the 3 for
apprehending the said Earl, had been publish'd in the island; his descendants
have on all occasions distinguish'd themselves to the utmost of their power by
thier loyalty & fidelity to the Crown.
Photograph by the author, who was getting tired!
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