Joseph Evans, Botanist, in Worsley

St Marks churchyard, Worsley, Salford.

 

'JOSEPH EVANS,
BOTANIST,
BOOTHSTOWN,
BORN JULY 5th 1803,
DIED JUNE 23rd 1874.'

Joseph Evans began work as a handloom weaver but became known as a herbal doctor, people often coming to him from many miles away for treatment, although he too would frequently walk a number of miles to see a patient. He believed absolutely in natural cures. Well over a thousand people attended his funeral, including many botanists.

 

'THIS MEMORIAL WAS ERECTED
BY PUBLIC SUBSCRIPTION
AS A TRIBUTE OF RESPECT
AND ESTEEM.'

 

 'PLANTS I LOVE AND CHERISH. IN
THEM THE WISDOM AND GOODNESS
OF THE CREATOR ARE MANIFEST.'

A quotation from Evans.

St Vincent Beechey in Worsley

 

'IN MEMORIAM
ST. VINCENT BEECHEY, M.A.
SCHOLAR OF CAIUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
BORN AUGUST 7TH 1806, DIED AUGUST 14th 189[9]'

St Vincent Beechey was the vicar of Fleetwood and Thornton-Cleveleys in Lancashire and later the vicar of Worsley, then also in Lancashire but now in Salford. He is the founder of Rossall School, Fleetwood, about which he wrote the 100-page book The Rise and Progress of Rossall School: A Jubilee Sketch (1894). Perhaps surprisingly, the book isn't at all turgid but endeavours to be amusing, although there are far too many exclamation marks. The following sentence, which uses a well-known expression of the time from Uncle Tom's Cabin to describe the school, is fairly typical:

'Under [the Council's] fostering care my child seemed to grow of itself, like Topsy!'

Link to Beechey's book:
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St Vincent Beechey: The Rise and Progress of Rossall School