Monday, June 25, 2018

A Monument to a Deceased Son


On one wall inside St. Margaret's Chapel is found a white marble memorial with a tri-colored mosaic border around it, containing a coat of arms and a short poem by American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes.


To the dear Memory of
Cyril Lytton Farrar
born at Harrow march 19th 1869
Died at Peking February 2nd 1891

Afar he sleeps whose name is graven here
where loving hearts his early doom deplore
youth, promise, virtue, all that made him dear
Heaven sent, earth borrowed, sorrowing
to restore.                              O.W. Holmes

Cyril Lytton Farrar was the son of the Revd. William Frederic Farrar, Rector at St. Margaret's from 1876 until he became Dean of Canterbury. More information about father and son can be found on-line at https://www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-commemorations/commemorations/frederic-and-cyril-farrar/

The beautifully simple arms of Farrar are: Argent on a bend engrailed sable three horseshoes argent.

A beautiful memorial to a son who died young (age 22) in a far and distant land.

No comments:

Post a Comment