Grave memorial to Albert Horner and family members

Summary

An individualised grave memorial dated 1921 that includes a sculpture of stonemasonry tools, this being a reference to the trade of the subject of the memorial.

Reasons for Designation

The grave memorial to Albert Horner and family members, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* for the good quality of the individualised design of the memorial incorporating sculptural depiction of masonry tools, the tools of Horner’s trade;
* as an illustration of the persistence into the C20 of the Victorian fashion for expensive grave monuments.

Historic interest:
* 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, including those to Ann Carr and William Darby (Pablo Fanque).

History

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 Albert Horner and family is one of a tight group of four memorials that were left in situ, two of which are associated with people of particular historic interest, namely William Darby (professionally known as Pablo Fanque, Britain’s first Black circus proprietor) and Ann Carr, founder and preacher of the Female Revivalist Society. This group of four memorials is one of a small number of similar groupings of memorials left as part of the landscaping.

Albert Horner is recorded in the burial records as being a mason, resident at 2 Herbert Place, Leeds, who died of heart failure. No further details appear to be recorded for either his wife Louisa or daughter-in-law Clara beyond those noted in the inscriptions on the memorial.

Details

Grave memorial to Albert Horner, 1921, Louisa Horner, added 1937 and Clara Horner, added 1950.

MATERIALS: fine-grained sandstone.

DESCRIPTION: the memorial is in the form of a parchment scroll draped over a shaped plinth raised up on a T-shaped base. The plinth is ornamented with a bas-relief carving of leaves, mainly ivy. Resting on the projecting part of the T-shaped base is a full relief carving of a stonemason’s hammer and trowel.

The main inscription is on the carved parchment scroll and reads:
‘EVER LOVING MEMORY / OF / ALBERT HORNER / THE DEARLY BELOVED HUSBAND OF / LOUISA HORNER, / WHO DIED MARCH 27TH 1921 / AGED 42 YEARS. / ALSO OF / LOUISA HORNER, / WHO DIED JANY 7TH 1937 AGED 57 YEARS.’

The projecting part of the base includes the inscription:
‘ALSO OF / CLARA HORNER, / THEIR DAUGHTER IN LAW / WHO DIED DECR 3RD 1950 / AGED 37 YEARS.’

Sources

Websites
Burial record for Albert Horner, accessed 08/09/2022 from https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/585232

End of official list entry

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