2-888-064 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Interior of Drayton Bassett Church, (funeral of Sir Robert Peel), 1850. 'The body having been conveyed into the church, was placed upon a settle close to the opening of the vault, and the mourners and pall-bearers were shown into the black-covered pews...The solemn service was now proceeded with amid a reverent silence, only broken now and then by irrepressible outbursts of affliction from the deeply-affected bystanders. The voice of the right rev. Bishop frequently faltered...It was only too obvious to all that he was performing with stern self-command a most harrowing task...At the awful words "dust to dust, and ashes to ashes," the coffin was lowered...down into the vault, and presently reposed upon the marble slab prepared to receive it...the three sons...approached the aperture, gazed down into the gloomy chamber, and took mental adieu of the illustrious dead'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.