Grave matters: Ivy

Ivy seems almost to be ubiquitous in cemeteries. Either you’ll find it carved into the stone of a grave marker as decoration, or it will be smothering that same headstone so you can no longer read the details of who’s buried beneath, or both!

As you might easily deduce, when the evergreen and almost indestructible ivy is used as a decorative element on a headstone it is intended to symbolise immortality and eternal life, and perhaps also rebirth and regeneration – just think how resilient a plant ivy is and how, even when you think you’ve removed every last piece of it from a stone wall, it soon reappears as if by magic. Some people believe ivy is also symbolic of friendship, faithfulness and fidelity.

The plant itself can be seen both as a blessing and a curse in a cemetery. On the positive side, it is an important plant for the environment, providing nectar and berries, shelter and nesting places for insects, birds, bats and other beasties. A covering of ivy is also thought to protect monumental stonework from weather erosion. On the negative side, however, the roots of ivy can creep between gaps in stonework causing grave monuments and headstones to crack and become unstable; its weight can cause similar instabilities; it frequently covers headstone inscriptions making them impossible to read; and if inexpert attempts to remove ivy can lead to further headstone damage.

How to deal with ivy is an issue for all authorities who have responsibility for heritage buildings and monuments, not just those in charge of cemeteries. One of the problems is that ivy can usually only be effectively eradicated through the use of herbicides and many heritage authorities have policies not to use chemicals within their grounds.

I don’t have the answers to the problems caused by ivy so I’ll let that literary master Charles Dickens have the last word here. This is the poem that appeared in his novel, Pickwick Papers, which was originally published in serial form between March 1836 and November 1837.

‘The Ivy Green’

Oh, a dainty plant is the Ivy green,

That creepeth o’er ruins old!

Of right choice food are his meals, I ween,

In his cell so lone and cold.

The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed,

To pleasure his dainty whim:

And the mouldering dust that years have made

Is a merry meal for him.

        Creeping where no life is seen,

        A rare old plant is the Ivy green.

Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings,

And a staunch old heart has he.

How closely he twineth, how tight he clings,

To his friend the huge Oak Tree!

And slily he traileth along the ground,

And his leaves he gently waves,

As he joyously hugs and crawleth round

The rich mould of dead men’s graves.

        Creeping where grim death has been,

        A rare old plant is the Ivy green.

Whole ages have fled and their works decayed,

And nations have scattered been;

But the stout old Ivy shall never fade,

From its hale and hearty green.

The brave old plant, in its lonely days,

Shall fatten upon the past:

For the stateliest building man can raise,

Is the Ivy’s food at last.

        Creeping on, where time has been,

        A rare old plant is the Ivy green.

Grave matters: 'No way to run a laundry'

In a room above a laundry in Lower Cathedral Road

A lurid story of sex and drugs is ready to unfold.

Shock, horror, scandal – four found in a bed.

Three women are alive but the Chinaman is dead!

Had they smoked opium? Speculation raced!

Is that why the women are so yellow faced?

Three English lasses, brassy and bold,

And a Chinaman from Birmingham, or so we are told.

Western Mail photo, 22 November 1922: ‘The laundry in Lower Cathedral-road’

If they had smoked opium, where is the pipe?

Or is this yet another case of newspaper hype?

Now the story changes: they drank it in their tea.

But where is the opium? That’s the mystery!

Western Mail photo, 22 November 1922: ‘Removing the girl victims from the laundry in the ambulance’

The women have been drugged, of that, there is no doubt.

Now we need to wake them up to get the story out.

“First, take them outside. Lay them on the ground.

Next, strip them naked, walk them all around.

Pummel them, push them. Don’t let them rest.”

Are they up to questioning? That will be the test.

Western Mail, photo: Arthur E. Smith, 23 November 1922: ‘Rosetta Paul and Florence Paul, two of the three girls who were found unconscious at the Chinese Laundry in Lower Cathedral-road, Cardiff.’

Treatment continues; all is touch and go,

And even when they’re better, their brains are very slow.

Doctors and policemen try communication

But the girls can’t – or won’t! – explain the situation.

And what of the Chinaman? Little Yee Sing.

Was he really part of an opium ring?

His friends say “No.” A policeman does too.

“He said he was afraid.” But of what? Of who?

Western Mail photo, 23 November 1922: ‘Yee Sing’

A search reveals four bottles full of Chinese swill

Tests show opium but not enough to kill.

An inquest is held: it shows disease in Yee Sing’s heart.

Was it that or opium that caused him to depart?

Western Mail photos, 28 November 1922: [left] ‘Our photograph shows Chinese and a white girl mourner (on the right) at the graveside.’ [right] ‘The Rev. W. Harris, of Clive-street Baptist Church, conducted the short service at the graveside.’

We will never really know what happened in that room,

Neither how three women were so drugged, nor Yee Sing met his doom.

The Chinaman is buried in the cemetery at Cathays

To lie in peace beneath the trees the rest of his days.

Yee Sing's grave at Cathays Cemetery

Grave matters: limbs lost and found, part two

Continuing on from part one of the partial body interments at Cathays Cemetery in Cardiff ...

Western Mail photo

The third leg uncovered – not literally! – at the cemetery was that of Charles Cravos, buried in 1906. His obituary from the Western Mail of 20 October 1936 tells his story:

CARDIFF SHIPOWNER DEAD

Mr. Charles Cravos, the Cardiff shipowner, for many years a leading personality at Cardiff Docks, has died at a Cardiff nursing home. Mr. Cravos, who lived in Cathedral-road, Cardiff, was principal of the firm Charles Cravos and Co., shipowners, Bute-street, having spent the whole of his extensive commercial life at Cardiff. He began his business career with the firm of R. W. James and Co., and later served for some time with Loveridge and Co., Ltd. More than 45 years ago, in partnership with his brothers, Mr. Stephen Cravos and Mr. Joseph Cravos, he opened a ship’s stores business at the docks under the style of Cravos Bros. In 1914 they became shipowners. Mr. Charles Cravos is survived by a widow, four sons, and two daughters.

One of the Cravos descendents has more colourful stories of her great-grandfather, including how he lost his leg:  

… he was a bit of a character I suppose. He was a ship owner and in his office he would have a liqueur from every country in the world so if you were a Portuguese ship owner he would give you the best Port, if you were from Brazil etc. The problem was that occasionally he drank the lot. He used to live on Cathedral Road ... Also he only had one leg. When he was 13 he was playing cricket he got hit by a ball and it went gangrenous. Then they didn't have any anaesthetic so they gave him a bottle of rum, knocked him out, put him on the kitchen table and sawed his leg off. When he came around they realised they hadn't done enough so they knocked him out again and took the rest off. Of course then he needed a chauffer so he bought 4 Rolls Royce's one for each season he had a black one for winter, brown for autumn and a pink topless one for summer. Every time he saw another one-legged man on the street he would stop the car and challenge them to a race.

I was a little dubious about the story of the four Rolls Royces until I discovered from his probate that Charlie had left effects to the value of £331,439 2s 7d, an enormous amount of money in 1936. The family’s wealth is reflected in the substantial house they lived in in Cathedral Road, Cardiff, and in the ornate gravestone at the cemetery, though this grave does not include Charles's lost leg. It is in an unmarked grave some 25 metres away.

The Cathedral Road home of Charles Cravos and his final resting place

The owner of the fourth leg did not lead such a fortunate life. Amelia Newton’s leg was buried in Cathays Cemetery on 26 April 1915. 

She was born Amelia Evans in 1848 in St David’s, Pembrokeshire and her father’s name was William but, as Evans is the fourth-most-popular surname in Wales, it has been difficult to find out much about Amelia’s early life.

No. 6 Harriett Street, where Amelia and Henry lived

On 21 July 1881, in Cardiff, at the age of 34, she married Henry Newton, a man ten years her senior. Henry was born in Fitzhead in Somerset and, as his father George died when he was still young, he began life as a labourer on the family farm. At some stage he moved to Cardiff and became a publican, though I haven’t discovered which pub he managed.

A son, George Henry Newton was born to Amelia and Henry in 1886 but he died the following year when just six months old, and there were to be no more children. At that point, the Newtons lived in Tyndall Street, in Cardiff, though they later moved to 6 Harriett Street. It seems a larger house that its neighbours in the street but the 1891 census shows that they shared the house with another couple.

I haven’t discovered why Amelia lost her leg in 1915. She was in her late sixties by then so perhaps it was through illness rather than accident. Her husband Henry died the following year so I imagine life became something of a struggle for Amelia, coping alone and without a limb. It seems she had no family and few friends to care for her as, when she died in July 1923, she bequeathed her personal effects of £122 7s 8d to Edwin Godfrey Jones, the postman.

Amelia is buried with her beloved husband Henry in Cathays Cemetery, and both her tiny son George and a niece, Annie A Jones, are also commemorated on the headstone. Her leg, in an unmarked grave, is at the opposite end of the cemetery.

It has been satisfying to reconnect the leg owners with their lost limbs, if only figuratively, and tell something of their stories. If we discover any more buried body parts at the cemetery, I’ll be sure to report on them.

If you want to know more about Cathays Cemetery or help with the restoration of the historic Chapels at the site, check out the website of the Friends of Cathays Cemetery.

Grave matters: limbs lost and found, part one

When I read the chapter heading ‘Leg of Male’ in the Friends of Cathays Cemetery’s 150th anniversary publication and discovered the leg – not the body, just the leg – of one Samuel Chivers was buried in the cemetery, I was intrigued.

Nowadays, if a person suffers the terrible misfortune of losing a limb, the body part is most likely incinerated along with the hospital’s other medical waste. However, that wasn’t always the case, and Cathays Cemetery in Cardiff contains the burials of at least four legs. (I say 'at least' as more may be discovered as transcription of the burial registers continues.)

Some religions (Orthodox Jews, for example) believe that all body parts must be buried with the body, but that also isn’t always the case. The left arm of American General Thomas Stonewall Jackson is a well-known example – though Jackson died not long after he lost his arm, the rest of him is buried in a separate grave. That is also true of our Cardiffian legs. In one of the four instances, the body is not even buried in the same cemetery. Apart from the locations of their burial plots, very little was known about the lost limbs and their former owners so I started sleuthing.

The leg of Samuel Chivers was buried here 16th April 1883

The Weekly Mail of 21 April 1883 (p.7) tells the story of Samuel Chivers’ unfortunate accident:

PONTYPRIDD.  CARRIAGE ACCIDENT ON THE CARDIFF-ROAD.

A few evenings ago Mr. Samuel Chivers, vinegar merchant, Cardiff, and Mr. Edward Rees, his relative, were thrown out of their trap while on their way from Pontypridd. One of Mr. Chivers' legs was so terribly injured that the bone protruded through the cloth of his trousers, The injured limb was amputated by Dr. Edwards, Taff's Well, on the following morning. Mr. Chivers is a native of Pontypridd. Mr. Rees, also, was injured, but not seriously.

Samuel’s leg was buried in Cathays on 16 April 1883 and the site is now marked with a wooden cross, though that is a recent addition. It was originally thought that Samuel was buried elsewhere as he and his large family of 12 children and various servants had moved away from central Cardiff but there is, in fact, a family plot in Cathays Cemetery. Samuel’s son, Harold, was the first to be buried there, in November 1902, followed by Samuel's wife Mary, in 1915, and finally by Samuel himself, when he died aged 73 in 1917. He and his leg are, however, still quite some distance apart.

The plain headstone at the left marks the Chivers family burials

The Chivers leg was not the first to be buried in Cathays. That dubious honour goes to the unfortunate Miss Skyrme, whose leg was buried a few months earlier, on 23 January 1883. Research had already revealed that her leg had been amputated following a horrendous accident at Gelli Colliery, at Pentre in the Rhondda Valley, on Friday 19 January 1883.

She was one of a group of seven women and five men taken down the pit to see the workings by the manager Mr Daniel Thomas. They had only been underground a short time when a haulier lost control of a tram, which then ran wild down the tramway. Most of the group managed to get out of the way but the tram ran over Miss Skyrme’s leg and the damage was so severe that the leg was amputated the following day.

But who was she? Edith Fanny Skyrme was born in Ystradyfodwg in 1867 to Edward and Frances (née George) Skyrme. Her father was both grocer and postmaster in Pentre. When she was born, Edith already had three older brothers, Henry (pictured at right, who went on to become a doctor), Frank (who became a clergyman) and Charles (a chemist). Two more daughters – Kate and Clara – and three more sons -- William, Richard, and Harold (another chemist, who developed the Shurzine Antiseptic Healing Ointment that was used extensively to treat soldiers' wounds in World War One) – brought the total number of Skyrme children to nine. Another daughter, Alice, died when just a few months old.

Some time between 1873 and 1875, the family moved to 6 Richmond Terrace, Park Place in Cardiff, though Edward still ran his grocery business in Pentre. They were obviously quite well off, as the 1881 census shows they employed two domestic servants. With such a large family, I’m sure Mrs Skyrme was glad of the help!

Sadly, though, the family were no strangers to tragedy. Their son Richard died, aged just 7, in the last months of 1882 so the family would only just have been recovering from that tragedy when Edith’s accident happened. In those days amputations were much more traumatic medical procedures than they are today so it was touch and go for a few days as to whether Edith would even survive. But, luckily, she was young and strong, though she remained at the house of Mr Rubert Boddicombe, fireman at the colliery, for a month until she was deemed well enough to make the journey by train to the family home in Cardiff.

The Cathedral Road house where Edith lived with her sister Kate and family

Unfortunately, Edith’s father Edward didn’t survive to see his daughter marry, as he died in April 1894, at the age of 64, but I’m sure the rest of the family gathered around, early in the year 1900, to help celebrate Edith’s marriage to 39-year-old Arthur Thomas Haddock, a coal salesman of Whitchurch. A daughter, Margaret Frances, was born the following year.

Once again, tragedy struck, as Arthur died of pneumonia in the first months of 1907, aged just 46. For a time Edith and daughter Margaret continued living in Whitchurch, then lived for various periods with some of her brothers in England, and with her sister Kate and her family in Cathedral Road, Cardiff. She died in Cardiff at the end of 1924, aged 57.

Edith Fanny Skyrme experienced much tragedy in her life but managed to rise above the trauma of the loss of her leg and live a relatively long life. She was buried with her husband in St Mary’s Church graveyard in Whitchurch so was never reunited with the limb she lost in that terrible accident at Gelli Colliery in January 1883.

The pink granite cross in the foreground marks the final resting place of Edith Fanny Haddock (nee Skyrme)

The story of the other two leg burials discovered at Cathays Cemetery will follow in my next post.

Thanks to Eric R. Fletcher for much of the information on Samuel Chivers, derived from his chapter ‘Leg of Male’ in Cathays Cemetery Cardiff, on its 150th Anniversary, Friends of Cathays Cemetery, Cardiff, 2009. To buy a copy of this fascinating book, check the Friends website. 

Thanks also to David Skyrme for additional information about the Skyrme family. You can learn more about his extensive research into the Skyrme surname here. 

Grave matters: Celtic crosses

The elaborate knotwork of Celtic art has long beguiled me.

I have a lovely gold ring shaped in a knot pattern; I have a book full of charted embroidery patterns adapted from such exquisite works as the stone Crosses of Moone and Muiredach, the metalwork of the Petrie Crown and the Ardagh Chalice, and the incredible illuminated manuscripts of the Books of Kells and Durrow; and I have used simplified versions of these patterns in my knitting designs.

So, during my wanderings around the graveyard that sits adjacent to Llandaff Cathedral and through the extensive grounds of Cathays Cemetery, both here in Cardiff, I find myself attracted again and again to the many fine Celtic cross headstones.

This design is a combination of a cross, with a ring the surrounds the intersection of the two branches of the cross. Though usually labelled a Celtic cross, its origin is something of a mystery. Some sources claim it comes from the 6th century Coptic Church because it resembles the Egyptian Ankh (or key of life); others see its roots in pagan religions, with the circle symbolising both the sun and the eternal circle of life; while the Romans believed it developed from the draping of victory wreaths across the horizontal bars of crosses.

There’s also a popular legend that attributes St Patrick with the idea of combining the Christian cross with the Sun cross to create the Celtic cross, in an effort to convert the Druids and Pagan Irish to the new Christian religion. Whatever its origins, it was adopted by the Celtic tribes of Ireland, Scotland and Wales in medieval times, and is now most often associated with those peoples. It is also the official cross of the Church of Scotland.

In the mid nineteenth century, the Celtic cross became popular as a grave marker, often in conjunction with decorative bands of intricate Celtic knotwork. It was not only used for people of Celtic origin but also for the general public, so it’s not surprising to find many examples in graveyards dating from Victorian times.

All the photographs included here are of crosses I found in the Llandaff Cathedral cemetery. The structural designs, the complex patterns, and the construction materials vary but each cross is a work of superb craftsmanship and intricate beauty.