Many Monumental Inscriptions mentioned by the Topographer Lysons, in his well known works on London and the adjacent parishes, as existing about sixty or seventy years since, have disappeared. Even in Westminster Abbey several inscribed memorials are actually concealed under the pavement of the choir. Numerous other instances might be adduced not only of the destruction of Monumental Inscriptions in London and in the country, through the recklessness of individuals, but also of the sacrifice of churches and churchyards, to the alleged requirements of local convenience.
In none of these cases, as your Memorialists believe, has any authenticated record been preserved of the inscriptions thus destroyed or concealed from view; and even if in any of them copies have been preserved, it is apprehended they may be of no avail in a court of justice.
A further destruction of such memorials is actually threatened by the Bill, about to be brought before Parliament by the Metropolitan Railway Company, with the object of obtaining the power of purchasing several churches and churchyards, and no provision appears to be contemplated for the preservation of the monumental memorials.
Your Memorialists are of opinion that the destruction of these Monumental Inscriptions must greatly facilitate the fabrication of fictitious and falsified memorials, such as have been adduced as evidence even in courts of justice on more than one occasion in recent times.
Your Memorialists beg therefore to request your Lordship's consideration of a matter in which, in common with a large class of Her Majesty's subjects, they feel deeply interested. They would submit to your Lordship's judgment whether a remedy for the alleged evils may not be found in the establishment of some system by which the preservation of sacred edifices and the Monumental Memorials themselves might be as far as possible ensured. And also whether carefully authenticated copies of the inscriptions on such memorials, more especially on those threatened with injury or destruction through requirements of public convenience, might not be preserved and registered under Government authority, and made by Act of Parliament legal evidence in all cases when the originals would have been admissible.
And your Memorialists will ever pray, &c.
The Rev. Joseph Hunter expressed his cordial interest in the object under consideration. He considered it highly desirable that some system should be brought into operation throughout the kingdom to preserve sepulchral inscriptions, a class of evidence constantly liable to be lost through the decay of time or wanton injury. Some persons might entertain a doubt as regarded the value of such memorials in a legal point of view, but they were on various grounds well deserving of preservation, and he thought that the charge of registration might well be intrusted to the incumbents of parishes.
It was then moved by Mr. J. H. Matthews, seconded by Mr. W. S. Walford, and carried unanimously that the Memorial proposed by Mr. Hawkins be adopted, and that the noble President of the Institute should be requested to add his signature thereto, on behalf of the Society.
