CH64. Tablet with urn above on a dark surround above column
To the Memory of SARAH FRANCES FORD / who lies buried in this Church Yard / she was the Daughter of HUGH JOSIAH HANSARD / (late of this Parish) / and wife of EDWARD FORD Surgeon, in London / by whom this Tablet is gratefully inscribed / Ye walls rever’d within whose hallow’d dome / The bride was led in youth and beaty’s bloom / Too soon succeeded to that bride ye gave / A mournful husband and an early grave / Yet not in vain she liv’d whose short spun life / Prov’d the good daughter and the tender wife / The Mothers cares just opening in her breast / The Mothers love two prattling babes confest / Rack’d by disease, religion’s sovereign pow’r / Sooth’d the sharp anguish of the lingering hour / Oh! that this frail memorial could impart / Such blest relief to each afflicted heart / she died June 23rd 1783 Aged 24 Years.
The memorial to Sarah Frances Ford is high up in the central aisle at St John’s but is difficult to read from the pews unless you have extremely good eyesight or a pair of binoculars!
The death of Sarah Frances Ford at age 24 when she had been married for only 7 years must have been tragic for her husband and 2 children that she left behind. Sarah and her husband Edward were married at St John’s in 1776 The poem on her memorial plaque sums it all up:
ye walls revered within whose hallowed dome,
the bride was led in youth and beauty’s bloom,
too soon succeeded to that bride ye gave
a mournful husband and an early grave.
Yet not in vain she lived whose short spun life
Prov’d the good daughter and the tender wife
The mother’s cares just opening in her breast
The mothers love two prattling babes confest
Racked by disease religion’s sovereign power
Soothed the sharp anguish of the lingering hour
Oh that this frail memorial could impart,
Such blest relief to each afflicted heart.
Sarah’s husband Edward Ford was an accomplished surgeon at the Westminster General Dispensary. However as anaesthesia hadn’t yet been invented and surgery was only performed as a last ditch attempt to save life, I think perhaps we would do well not to think about this too much! According to Wikipedia, Edward married again but I have been unable to find out any details.
Christine Bartlett