CH51. A seated woman holding an effigy of a man’s head before an obelisc and above a tablet
Tablet: To the Memory of / THOMAS LANE Esq. / younger brother of a respectable family / many years resident at Cowley Grove in this parish / who / having acquired a fortune by constant application / and unspotted integrity in business / retired / and spent the remainder of his life doing good / This monument was erected by his grateful nephew / The Revd. RICHARD HARINGTON.
Around the effigy: An honest Man is the noblest Work of God.
Thomas Lane
A very fine sculpture which is a memorial to Thomas Lane 1681 -1746. He was baptised at St John’s, the son of William and Margaret Lane. With his business partner Sir John Salter (Lord Mayor of London in 1739), Thomas became a respected and wealthy linen draper in Hampstead. The monument states that he was “of a family resident at Cowley Grove”, and it would seem that although he lived and ran his business in Hampstead he spent his childhood in Hillingdon, and requested in his will to be buried at St John’s. He didn’t marry and he had no children.
The sculptor of the monument was John Bacon the Elder, who was responsible for a variety of statues in London and many important church monuments.
Here is a technical description of the monument: above the inscription, which is on an apron, is a tall obelisk. On this is a high relief sculpture of a classical girl holding a roundel with a profile portrait of the deceased. He is shown as an elderly man, eye sunken, nose protruding, with a softness of age to cheek and chin. He wears a cloth hat. By contrast, the girl is ideal and Classical in a Hellenistic rather than Hellenic fashion, with nicely studied hair and complex drapes. She is seated upon packing cases, perhaps indicative of the line of business which made the deceased his fortune.
Cowley Grove was a large house in Cowley Road, where Frayslea is now. It was demolished in 1967 and was a hotel for sometime before that. It was also the home of John Rich, the actor who introduced pantomime to England and who is buried in the churchyard.
Christine Bartlett