Grave memorial to Ann Carr

Summary

Grave memorial to Ann Carr who died 1841 and who founded the Female Revivalist Society in 1822.

Reasons for Designation

The grave memorial to Ann Carr is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Historic interest:
* for its inscription to Ann Carr, a nationally significant figure for women’s history, being the founder of the Female Revivalist Society in 1822, an early religious movement that was established and run entirely by women;
* as one of only a very small number of grave markers that were retained when the former Woodhouse Cemetery was re-landscaped as public open space in the late 1960s;

Group value:
* with the nearby cemetery chapel, lodges and a small number of other surviving grave monuments.

History

Ann Carr, was born in 1783 as the youngest of 12 children in a family of modest means living in Market Rasen, Lincolnshire. When 18, the death of the man she had hoped to marry led to her conversion to Methodism. In 1816, whilst in Nottingham, she started preaching for the Primitive Methodists, perhaps inspired by Sarah Kirkland who was working in the area at that time; Kirkland being the Primitive Methodist’s first female travelling preacher. Carr moved to Hull in 1818 where she laid the foundation stone for the Mill Street Primitive Methodist Chapel the following year and became friends with fellow preacher Sarah Eland. In 1821 Carr, Eland and Martha Williams were sent to Leeds as revivalists under the authority of the Primitive Methodist circuit. They proved to be popular preachers but did not accept the discipline of the circuit and they soon seceded, establishing the Female Revivalist Society in 1822; a religious movement led and run exclusively by women. They opened their own chapel, Leylands Chapel on Regent Street, Leeds in 1825, with a second chapel in Holbeck in 1826, quickly becoming known for their social work in the surrounding slums. By the mid-1830s they were particularly noted for their work in supporting temperance. In 1837-1838 Carr visited Hull and London to further spread the work of the society, but her health started failing the following year and she died of cancer on 18 January 1841.

What is now known as St George’s Fields was opened as Woodhouse Cemetery in 1835 by the Leeds General Cemetery Company when the Leeds Parish Cemetery became over-filled and insanitary. The cemetery was acquired by Leeds University in 1956 and most of the monuments were cleared after 1965. The area was re-landscaped without disturbing the over 90,000 burials by then contained within the cemetery, and in 1969 the cemetery was reopened as a public open space. The grave memorial to Anne Carr forms part of a tight group of four memorials that were left in situ, one of a small number of similar groupings of memorials left as part of the landscaping.

Details

Grave memorial to Ann Carr, 1841.

MATERIALS: fine-grained sandstone.

DESCRIPTION: the memorial is in the form of a plain upright grave slab with a shaped top and a long inscription, the slab being set on a simple plinth. The inscription reads:
‘IN MEMORY OF / ANN CARR, / FOUNDRESS OF THE SECT OF FEMALE / REVIVALISTS AND FOR 25 YEARS / ONE OF ITS MOST DEVOTED PREACHERS / HER NATURALLY STRONG INTERLECT AND / ARDENT SPIRIT WERE EARLY SANCTIFIED BY / THE GRACE AND CONSECRATED TO THE GLORY / OF GOD AND SHE BECAME BY HER HOLY ZEAL / AND UNTIRED EFFORTS AN INSTRUMENT OF / EXTENSIVELY MAKING KNOWN THE GOSPEL / OF JESUS CHRIST.

SHE DIED JANUARY 18TH 1841, AGED 57 YEARS.

“I KNOW THY WORKS AND THY LABOUR AND / THY PATIENCE, AND FOR MY NAMES SAKE / HAST LABOURED, AND HAST NOT FAINTED”

THIS TABLET IS ERECTED IN GRATEFUL / REMEMBERANCE OF HER WORTH AND / LABOURS, BY THE MEMBERS OF THE FEMALE / REVIVALISTS FRIENDLY SICK SOCIETY / OF WHICH SHE WAS PRESIDENTESS.’

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

465216

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Websites
Burial record, accessed 08/09/2022 from https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/513609
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry, accessed 08/09/2022 from https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/41258

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