I know someone who knows someone..
All people buried in Reading Old are important and have made their mark in their own rights. Some of them are related to famous people who are not buried in the cemetery, worked with or for them…or have famous descendants.
Here are the ones we have discovered so far. Get in touch if you know about more:
- AUSTEN, Herbert Grey: One of Jane Austen’s nephews
- BAZETT, Richard Young & DEANE BUTCHER, William: ancestor of the actress Olivia Colman, CBE [page in progress]
- BURNETT, Mary Gordon: half-niece of Charles Dickens & related to James Hargreaves, inventor of the spinning Jenny
- BURNETT, Henry: Charles Dickens’s brother-in-law
- CUTHBERT COLLINGWOOD DENNY, Anthony: grandson of Admiral Lord Collingwood [page in progress]
- FYNES-CLINTON, Eustace: Sr Hubery Parry’s uncle. Sir Parry was a composer of hymns like the famous hymn Jerusalem or the coronation anthem I Was Glad.
- GILBERT, Maria: granddaughter of Thomas Gilbert who proposed the Relief of the Poor Act in 1782, known as Gilbert’s Act. [page in progress]
- HAVELL, Susanna: sister of William Havell, landscape painter, and the famous Havell family, notable engravers, etchers and painters.
- MACAULAY, James & Elizabeth: parents of Florence Elizabeth Mary MacAulay, a British suffragist and member of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), who wrote the lyrics to The Women’s Marseillaise
- NOON, Louisa: sister of the artist, tinter, and engraver William Henry Timms
- RAVENSCROFT SCRIVENER, Percy: descendant of Thomas Ravenscroft, the famous musician also associated with the poet John Milton [page in progress]
- SIMONDS, Blackall: Brother of the sculptor George Blackall Simonds
- WATTS, Lucy: 40 years maid to Baroness Burdett-Coutts
- WHEELER, Samuel: grandfather of Kathleen Wheeler Crump, famous America sculptor and painter. She has drawn a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, given to her when she visited the States.