DECIPHERING THE BENNETT/LE FANU CAPSTONE

By Brian J. Showers

(ISSN 1932-9598)

I. Introduction

On a dull, overcast February afternoon in 1873, Irish author Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu was laid to rest in Mount Jerome Cemetery in south Dublin.  A light pall of snow descended from the solemn, grey sky onto a field of equally solemn and grey monuments.  It is not now known exactly who or how many people attended the semi-reclusive author’s funeral, though we definitely know that Joseph’s younger brother William Richard Le Fanu, who diligently recorded the day’s weather in his diary, was present.[1]  Thomas ‘Philip’ Le Fanu, Joseph’s errant son who signed the Register of Burials, also likely attended the interment.  Philip would join his father in the very same vault less than seven years later. 

Erected on the gravesite beside which the funeral party had assembled was a large granite vault measuring eight feet by six.  The capstone of Keane limestone, which today lies atop the two-tiered granite base, was on that day shifted to one side so that the mortal remains of the distinguished author could be lowered into the subterranean vault below.  This vault, along with ‘Perpetual right of Burial’, was purchased in1841 by Le Fanu’s father-in-law George Bennett.  Joseph’s coffin was placed in the vault beside his wife Susanna, the latter of whom preceded him in death by some fifteen years. 

It was during this time, between Susanna’s death and his own, that Joseph earned the appellation ‘Invisible Prince’.  In the wake of his beloved wife’s passing, and in the shadow of continued bereavement that lasted until his own death, Joseph produced a steady stream of novels and short stories—often dealing with themes of faith, guilt and loss—in the solitude of his Merrion Square home.  He died on 7 February 1873 at six o’clock in the evening, and is listed in the Mount Jerome Cemetery Register of Burials as having died of a ‘Disease of the Heart’.[2]  He was interred four days later.  It was only appropriate that he be reunited with Susanna in her familial resting place on that dreary February afternoon.

Today the non-descript vault of the Bennett/Le Fanu family can be found on the interior apex of the Nun’s Walk, adjacent the cemetery wall.[3]  The vault is subtly anachronistic as it sits among other markers and memorials that were erected in more recent times.  The Bennett/Le Fanu capstone and its inscription are perfectly horizontal, like a tabletop, facing the open sky.  As such, the capstone is particularly susceptible to the elements, hence the severe erosion during the 150 odd years since the first stonecutter’s marks. At a casual glance the surface of the stone appears smooth and blank, but upon closer inspection one can see faint indentations.  On a bright day, one can with relative ease make out the name Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu.

In the company of local library assistant Lucy Walshe, I ambled over to Mount Jerome one sunny afternoon to see if we could fully decipher the markings on the capstone.  We first attempted to take a rubbing, but the engraving was so faded that this proved unsuccessful.  A trained information technician at her quarry is not to be deterred.  Going above and beyond her job description, Lucy next employed the use of a soft-bristled toothbrush to carefully wipe away the thin layer of lichen that covered the capstone.  We wet the stone with water from a nearby spigot in hopes that this would further draw out the engraving.  Although still very faint, we slowly began to decipher and transcribe what had once been written thereon.

As we worked, clouds began to accumulate and move across the sky, frequently obscuring the sunlight.  It was only during the brief moments when the sun peaked out from behind this endless procession of clouds that we were best able to see the words before us—although we were still subject to much squinting and double-checking.  Alas, it was only later that I was taught an old Egyptologist’s trick of reading faded hieroglyphics by using a torch (electric or otherwise) to amplify the shadows caused by shining a light on the engravings at an angle.  In retrospect, this makes far more sense than waiting for the sun to shine in Ireland.

After roughly three hours of careful inspection, we managed a fairly complete and definite transcription of the original text.  The following contains only the information we could discern directly from the capstone itself.  While some of the information, mainly dates, can be inferred from other sources, what follows is a pure ‘primary source’ transcription.  In part three of this article I will attempt to fill in the blanks where possible, as well as supply further notes and elaborations. 

II. The Bennett/Le Fanu Inscription

Line                             Inscription

1                                  Here Lies

2                                  JONATHAN LOVETT BENNETT

3                                  Son of GEORGE BENNETT

4                                  of Merrion Square Q.C.

5                                  He died [?] December 1840

6                                  Aged 20 years and [?] Months

7                                  [__dly?] [beloved?] [?]

8                                  And of his oldest son

9                                  THE REV GEORGE BENNETT

10                                Who died on the [?] of [?] 1853

11                                Aged [?] Years and [?] Months

12                                [His?] [beloved?] [?]

13                                Also SUSAN Daughter of

14                                GEORGE BENNETT Q.C.

15                                who died the [?] April 1858

16                                Also her husband

17                                JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU

18                                who died the [?] of February Aged [?] Years

19                                Also GEORGE BENNETT ESQ. Q.C.

20                                of Grange in Kings County

21                                who died on [?] May 1856

22

23                                399

III. Notes on the Inscription and Register of Burials

Lines 1-6: Jonathan Lovett Bennett[4] (b. 1820 – d. December 1840) was Susanna Le Fanu’s younger brother and the first to be interred in the vault.  Hence Jonathan’s name appears first at the top of the capstone.  If Jonathan died in December 1840, and his father George Bennett did not purchase the vault until May 1841, according to the Register of Perpetuities, one might rightly question where Jonathan was interred during the intervening five months.  Jonathan Lovett Bennett died [?] December 1840.  He was interred in the vault on 4 December 1840. 

Line 7: There appear to be three words in this line, none of them completely decipherable, save for the middle word, which possibly, but not certainly, reads ‘beloved’.  It would appear Line 7 refers to Jonathan Lovett Bennett as Line 8 begins with ‘And his oldest son’, which seems to indicate the beginning of the next inscription. 

Line 8-11: The Reverend George Bennett (b. 1813? – d. February 1853) was Susanna Le Fanu’s elder brother.  Although his is the second inscription to appear on the capstone, he is the third to be interred in the vault (see below for explanation).  The Reverend George Bennett died on the [?] of February 1853, Aged 40 Years and [?] Months.

Line 12: Line 12 is similar to Line 7 in length (possibly the same three words), but too little remains to make a reliable guess.  As with Line 7, Line 12 might refers to the Reverend George Bennett as Line 13 seems to be the beginning of the next transcription.

Line 13-15: Susanna (née Bennett) Le Fanu (b. 1823 – d. 28 April 1858) was Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s wife.  They were married on 18 December 1843 and were together for roughly fifteen years before she passed away at the age of 34.  Curiously, a man by the name of James Nichols gave his Signature of Attestation in the Register of Burials, not Joseph.  Susanna Le Fanu died the 28 April 1858.  Her exact cause of death is not given.

Lines 16-18: Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (b. 28 August 1814 – 7 February 1873).  It is interesting to note in the inscription that Joseph is anchored by relation to Susanna (‘Also her husband’).  At this time the reverse was more common with the wife and sometimes even children being anchored by relation to the pater familias.[5]  In some cases the wife is not named in the inscription at all.  Presumably the reason for this peculiar reversal is that the vault is primarily that of the Bennett family, and Joseph is defined by his relationship to that family.  Joseph died the 7th of February 1873 Aged 58 Years. 

Lines 19-21: George Bennett, Esq., Queen’s Council, (b. 1777 – d. 26 May 1856) was Susanna Le Fanu’s father and ‘the leading barrister on the Munster circuit court.’[6]   In July 1851 he retired to Shropshire, taking with him his unmarried daughters.  Ownership of the Merrion Square home passed into the hands of his son John Bennett (see footnote 4), from whom Joseph rented it for £22 10s. per annum.[7]  George Bennett, Esq. died in 1856 at the age of 78, between the deaths of his son George and his daughter Susanna.  Despite this, his name appears at the bottom of capstone, and not in chronological sequence of passing as the others.  ‘of Grange in Kings County’ refers to the Bennett family’s home in the midlands, where John Bennett resided after 1851. ‘Grange’ is to the southeast of Birr (then Parsonstown), in County Offaly (then King’s County).[8]  ‘J.S. Le Fanu’ gave his Signature of Attestation in the Register of Burials.  George Bennett Esq. Q.C. died on 26 May 1856.

Line 23: At the far bottom of the capstone is the number ‘399’.  It is the only mark that is clearly visible.  399 is the vault’s Grant Number listed in the Mount Jerome Cemetery Register of Perpetuities.

Of the seven people listed in the Register of Perpetuities as being interred in the vault, only five of its occupants are inscribed on the capstone.  Cecilia Georgina Bennett (b. August 1848 – d. July 1849), the infant daughter of Susanna’s brother Edmund, is unlisted.  It is possible that she is listed in Line 7 or 12, but the engravings do not look to be long enough.  It is more likely that because of her young age, eleven months, the family felt she did not warrant an inscription.  Cecilia Georgina Bennett is listed in the Register of Burials as having been interred in the vault on 28 July 1849. “Joseph S. Le Fanu” gave his Signature of Attestation. 

Thomas Philip Le Fanu (b. 3 September 1847 – d. 19 December 1879), Joseph’s eldest son, also does not appear to be listed on the vault.  As with Cecilia Georgina Bennett, his name might be in either Line 7 or 12, though this is highly unlikely.  Philip, or ‘Philie’ as the family referred to him, was something of a family embarrassment as he was prone to both debt and drink; he was also directly responsible for the dispersal of Le Fanu’s personal papers.  According to Le Fanu biographer W.J. McCormack:

‘Though Philip had been appointed his father’s executor, it fell to William to arrange the children's affairs. Under the terms of Joseph’s mortgage of 1868, now that he was dead his heirs had no tenancy at Merrion Square and the great terrace house quickly passed into other hands. Financially, Le Fanu's children had little to rely on . . . To add to William’s problems, various bills in Philie's name had to be met immediately. The Le Fanu inheritance had between 1845 and 1873 profited nothing by the growth of Victorian prosperity and stability; apart from William's success in assimilating himself into the new bourgeois society and the new disestablished church, all that survived were paintings of the past, engraved silver, relics.

     ‘Even these were were soon at risk. Philie Le Fanu, already showing signs of dissipation and now deprived of his home on Merrion Square became a persistent trial to his patient uncle. Some time after February 1873, Sheridan Le Fanu’s papers were put on the market: the Dublin antiquarian William Frazer bought eight manuscript letters, two of which Le Fanu had published in the [Dublin University Magazine] in 1839. None of Le Fanu’s literary papers sold at this time have been traced. Paintings and other heirlooms were preserved only by the intervention of William Le Fanu himself, who bought back his brother’s property for the family.’[9]

At the time of his death Philip had no immediate family in Dublin.  Perhaps it was only through the goodwill of his uncle William, who was the only one to give his Signature of Attestation in the Register of Burials, that Philip was interred with his parents.  This goodwill seems not to have extended to the hiring of a stonecarver to add the final name to the capstone inscription.  He died of consumption at the age of 31, and was interred in the vault on 22 December 1879.  Beneath Philips’ entry in the Register of Burials is the note ‘Will hold six more’. 

No one has been interred in the vault since Philip, but anyone connected with either the Bennett or the Le Fanu family would to this day be able to claim Perpetual right of Burial. 

IV. Conclusion

The consistency of the rain in Ireland will ensure that what remains of the inscription will completely fade with the passing of the next decade.  What is the point of a memorial if the identities of those who lie within are erased from the stone?  This may indeed be the eventual and ultimate destiny of us all, but perhaps the fate of this particular vault can be evaded for another century or two if the inscription were once again engraved into the capstone’s surface.  Additionally, perhaps a plaque to the vault’s most notable occupant, made of a more durable material than Keane limestone, could somehow be affixed to the granite kerbing.   Until such a time when enough funds can be collected to embark on such a project, we must be satisfied with the above transcription.

With gratitude to Lucy Walshe, Jim Rockhill and Gary Crawford.