Today we took a wonderful tour of Westminster Abbey. I was super excited to see where William and Kate got married! The tour started off semi slow, but soon picked up when we entered the coronation room. I also walked by what is known to be the “oldest door” in London. I really wanted to touch it but I had to walk away before my intrusive thoughts got the best of me. Towards the end of the tour we were shown most of the people buried there. The coolest one to me was Sir Isaac Newton, like I knew he was real but I still thought of him of just some name in history. Lowkey was kind of starstruck.
The first person that caught my attention was Charles Dickens. He was an English writer and novelist, and passed away in eighteen seventy. He wrote some well-known books like A Tale of Two Cities and A Christmas Carol. He passed away at his house in Rochester and people thought he should be buried at Westminster due to his popularity. It was said that in his will he just wanted his name on the tomb and he wanted to just be remember by his work.
Next was Robert Browning, he was a poet. While doing research it was shown that The Ring and the Book was his best work. He married another famous poet Elizabeth Barrett and had a son named Pen. They both passed away in December of eighteen eighty-nine. They were both sick and died in their son’s house in Italy. Elizabeth is buried in Florence, but the cemetery was closed, so they decided to bury him at Westminster. They have Robert buried there and a memorial on the tomb for his wife. His son’s ashes are right by his head in the tomb too.
Finally, the last person that I thought was interesting that was buried there is William Camden. He mostly known for publishing his dictionary, Britannica. It is the world’s “oldest continuously published encyclopedia”. He was buried there in sixteen twenty-three. There is bust with a carving of him holding his book in his left hand. While looking this up I saw that his bust got damaged in the civil war but was fixed up by the University of Oxford. Super cool day and very glad it wasn’t too hot in there.
Theatre in London U of A 