Quite a few years ago I posted an article to the site that related to the sale of Whirlow Brook Hall to Sheffield City Council. As the headline stated at the time Sheffield Corporation bought Whirlow Brook and nearly forty acres of grounds for £15,000 which in current values amounts to circa £440,000. But the bulk of the purchase was financed by grants from Trusts leaving the Corporation to find a mere £1500 (£44,000). Surely it must have been one of the most astute pieces of municipal acquisition that the Corporation has ever managed. The seller was Sir Walter Benton Jones a prominent industrialist.
The one problem that needed to be resolved was the removal of Sir Walter Benton Jones's late wife Dame Lily Marguerite Jones who was buried in the gardens of the Hall eight years earlier.
The exhumation must have occurred before the sale went through but for years I was unable to ascertain where Lady Jones was re-interred. This week purely by chance I had another attempt and was fortunate to locate her final resting place
The excellent Find A Grave site carried an entry for St Andrews Churchyard in Irnham in Lincolnshire
Name: Lily Marguerite Jones
Birth Date: Apr 1879 Birth Place: Sheffield England
Death Date: Sep 1938 age 59
Death Place: Irnham, South Kesteven District, Lincolnshire, England
Cemetery: St Andrew Churchyard Burial or Cremation Place: Irnham, South Kesteven District, Lincolnshire, England
Spouse: Walter Benton Jones
This is the inscription on the grave.
IN THIS DEDICATED GRAVE IN THE GARDEN IN WHICH SHE
LOVED AND IN WHICH SHE SPENT A GREAT DEAL OF
HER LIFE LIES THE BODY OF
LILY MARGUERITE
BELOVED WIFE OF WALTER BENTON JONES
BORN APRIL 1879 DIED SEPTEMBER 1938
SHE ENDURED MUCH SUFFERING WITH GREAT COURAGE
AND ACQUIRED A SINGLENESS OF MIND THAT
ENDEARED HER TO ALL
BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART FOR THEY SHALL SEE GOD
What I believe happened is that this memorial was in place over her initial resting place at Whirlow Brook Hall because "it was in the garden in which she loved and in which she spent a great deal of her life." When he body was exhumed from the garden in 1946 it was re-interred in the graveyard at St Andrew Churchyard Irnham, South Kesteven District, Lincolnshire, England. Irnham Hall was the home of her husband's family and she was finally laid to rest there.
The memorial from Whirlow Brook Hall also accompanied her on her final journey.
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