St Augustine's RC Cemetery
Ramsgate

The church was built between 1845 and 1852.  Even before a parish was formed in Ramsgate the church provided mass for local Catholics, visitors and foreign sailors.

There were three burials listed in the Cemetery records at the Church before Augustus Pugin died in 1852.  The earliest burial in the churchyard was Jane Walmesley in early 1849. Jane was possibly the child of Michael and Harriet Walmesley who share the same grave plot.  Michael was living at Spencer Square in 1841. (plot 43)

The second burial was Bertha Hunt who died the 18th of September 1851 (plot 136) and the third was a young child Bridget Ratto (plot 135) who died 28th November 1851.

 

Bridget Ratto lived with her siblings and widowed grandmother, Bridget Hunt who was from Ireland, at 5 Portland Place.  The children's parents were living elsewhere in the town.  Bridget's father, John Baptist Ratto, a hawker, was born in 1814 in Genoa, Italy.

 

It is known from Pugin's letters and diaries that a number of sailors were buried here but they weren't listed in the burial records.  Either they died from fever in his home after being taken to the Grange to be cared for or were bodies of sailors washed up on the shore.  His diaries note  "A Portuguese seaman has been buried in the cemetery". And from Pugin's diary in December 1847 he notes 'Spaniard died' on 9 December and 'Spaniard buried' on 10 December.  This was likely to be Antonio Ueria as this was the only male Spanish name registered in Thanet for deaths at the time. 

Also from the South Eastern Gazette in January 1851. "A Spanish sailor lately fell from the mast head of the vessel to which he belonged; he was immediately picked up by the crew, and conveyed to the Ramsgate Hospital, but expired before he arrived there; he has since been buried in Mr Pugin's Roman Catholic burial ground." This would have been Antonio Gueller from looking at the Thanet registered deaths of the time.

 

In Flint Seaside Church, guidebook to St Augustine’s, there is also mention of Captain Izan Thomaso, whose tombstone, sadly weathered now, is in the garth, where the very earliest burials were, as one can see in a drawing of 1854.

 

STORIES OF SOME OF THOSE BURIED IN THE CHURCHYARD

SARAH MacTAVISH Plot 23

Wife of William MacTavish late of Fort Garry, Ruperts Land (Canada), chief factor in the Hudson's Bay Company.  A Hudson's Bay Company governor he was b. 29 March 1815 in Edinburgh, Scotland,  William's uncle placed him in an apprenticeship with the Hudson's Bay Company in 1833. Mactavish married Mary Sarah McDermot, the Catholic daughter of businessman Andrew McDermot in 1857 in Canada.  Whilst William was governor of Rupert's Land the Red River Rebellion took place over the control of the region between Hudson's Bay Company and Canada.  When Upper Fort Garry was seized, MacTavish was put in prison. At this point he had advanced tuberculosis. He was released from prison a few months later and left with his family for Scotland, dying in Liverpool two days after their arrival in 1870.

Sarah MacTavish was living on Grange Road by the time of her death in 1873 having initially stayed with her sister-in-law in Kensington.  Sarah had four children aged between 6 and 13 when she died.

 

 

Plot 21

BERNARD VALENTINE CLUTTERBUCK

He is commemorated in the churchyard having been killed in action during WW1 whilst serving with the Royal Field Artillery.  He was the son of Alexander and Adelaide Clutterbuck of Suffolk.  Bernard attended Beaumont College in Windsor, a Jesuit public school.  He had previously emigrated to Canada but returned in 1915 to enlist.  From The Tablet:

 

Second-Lieut. Bernard Valentine Clutterbuck, R.F.A., att. T.M.l3., who met his death on July 13 at the age of thirty-four, was educated at Beaumont and at Balliol, where he held a mathematical scholarship. Serving at first in the A.S.C., he afterwards obtained a commission in the R.F.A., and had only recently changed over to the Trench Mortar Battery. He was killed on the night of July 13 by a shell which struck the dug-out in which he was sleeping. His chaplain writes :—" The last time I saw him was a fortnight ago. He was going straight up into action with the Trench Mortar Battery,. and the rest of us were to follow by easy stages. On that occasion he got together all the Catholics of the battery, and I heard their confessions and gave them Holy Communion. He was one of the most devout Catholics I have met, and, as you can imagine, a great help to me in my work."

 

His mother Adelaide was living in Ramsgate by the time of her death in 1921 which is why her son is commemorated here.

 

THE RIVAROLA FAMILY plot 19 and 41

JANE MARGARET & HELEN AMELIA RIVAROLA

Daughters of Count William Rivarola of Her Majesty's 67th Regiment.  William Rivarola died in 1890 at the age of 69. His gravestone is now no longer legible. His obituary appeared in The Tablet.

 

We regret to record the very sudden death of COUNT RIVAROLA, an old and very well-known inhabitant of Ramsgate. The Count was in his usual health till Thursday evening last, when he came home at about ten o'clock, and, after sitting in a chair in his dining-room for only a few minutes, loudly exclaimed, "Oh, my God ; "

The newspapers of the time stated that he had walked home rather hurriedly and had died of heart disease.

The father of the deceased Count was Lieutenant-General Count Sir Francis Rivarola, Colonel of the Royal Malta Fencible Regiment. William was therefore born in Malta as his father was serving there but Francis Rivarola had been born in Corsica and the family was originally from Parma.

 

Plot 74 BLANCE FLORENCE DUPPA

Blanche Florence Duppa daughter of Baldwin Francis Duppa, magistrate and deputy lieutenant for Kent.  The Duppa family is an ancient one originally of Herefordshire. The Duppa family bought the estate of Hollingbourne, near Maidstone in 1705. The family have distinguished members back to Tudor times with members of the family serving as sheriffs under various monarchs such as Henry V, Elizabeth I and Charles I. Blanche's family lived at Hollingbourne at the time of her death although  Blanche had died at Liege in Belgium in January 1859 aged 23.

 

PLOT 111 SIR FRANCIS COWLEY BURNAND

Sir Francis Cowley Burnand (29 November 1836 – 21 April 1917), was an English comic writer and prolific playwright. By the 1870s, Burnand was generating a high output of plays as well as comic pieces and illustrations for the humour magazine Punch. He was knighted in 1902 for his work on Punch of which he was the editor for 25 years.

The son of a prosperous family, he was educated at Eton and Cambridge, and was expected to follow a conventional career in the law or in the church, but he concluded that his vocation was the theatre.

He enrolled at Cuddesdon theological college, where his studies of divinity led him to leave the Anglican church and become a Roman Catholic.

Burnand lived for much of his life in Ramsgate and after a winter of bronchitis, he died in 1917 at his home in Ramsgate, at the age of 80

 

PLOT 230 SIR JOHN KNILL

Sir John Knill. Lord Mayor of London 1909-1910 Upon his appointment there was a lot of interest in the newspapers that a Catholic had been given the role and Knill had to give assurances that he would not toast the Pope before the King and would attend Church of England services in relation to his duties.  His father, Stuart, had also faced the same scrutiny when he became the second Catholic Lord Mayor of London since the Reformation.

 

Knill's wife, Mary Edith Powell, was a grand-daughter of Augustus Pugin.  His grand-father, also called John Knill, was the uncle of Augustus Pugin's third wife, Jane Knill.

 

 

 

Plot 234 JAMES JOSEPH HICKS

James Joseph Hicks one of the founders of Westminster Cathedral. His obituary from The Tablet stated that he died on the 25th of October 1916 at Cliftonville after being in failing health for several months.  Hicks was born in 1837 and his company in London was the leading maker of barometers and thermometers as well as other scientific instruments relating to meteorological use. He was made a fellow of the Meteorological Society in 1901.

 

PLOT 247

CHRISTOPHER KIRK

Christopher Kirk died at the Grange where he was living with his companion George Mason. Christopher had unsuccessfully tried to divorce his wife in 1907 on the grounds of adultery but this was dismissed.  His wife then successfully divorced him in 1908 and he had to pay her and their daughter maintenance.  However, when he died in 1920 he left the vast bulk of his estate to his companion. This was featured in the newspapers of the time but probate was granted and it was established that the will was legally valid. An agreement was reached in relation to providing for the daughter.

 

Plot 251 MICHAEL THUNDER

Although he does not appear on the Old Boys' Memorial Michael Thunder, grandson of Augustus Pugin, is buried in St Augustine's Churchyard.  A second lieutenant in the Royal Flying Corp. He died the 24th of September 1916 from burns sustained in a flying accident on the previous day. His mother was Margaret, the daughter of Augustus Pugin by his 3rd wife Jane Knill.

 

PLOT 240 LOUIS CASELLA

Louis Casella was the son of a scientific engineer and the descendent of a musician, artist and writer who had emigrated from Italy and eventually became a tutor to the daughters of King George III.  His grandmother's father was a scientific instrument maker who had emigrated from Italy in 1810 and this successful family business was handed down through the generations.

Louis had attended school at St Augustine's and although he was of London he died in Ramsgate at Royal Crescent in 1904 at the young age of 22.

 

 

 

 

 

PLOT 256 WILLIAM DUTHOIT

William had been a lawyer in Bengal for Her Majesty's Civil Service and upon his retirement at the age of 50 had become a Church of England vicar. After 10 years he converted to Catholicism.  He had gone through a messy divorce in 1889, which being a vicar, was sensationally covered by the press. It seems the divorce was granted and he and his wife were living separately but nonetheless they were buried together after dying just months apart. Frances, his wife, had been living in Ramsgate but William had lived in Sussex.

 

PLOT 204 HERMAN BICKNELL

Herman was born in Surrey and was a surgeon in the army, using his 4 years in service in India to study oriental dialects.  He resigned his commission in 1861 to devote his time to his travels and study of languages. From this period he undertook many journeys of various duration and difficulty, extending from the Arctic regions to the Andes of Ecuador, and from America to the far East, more especially with the object of improving himself in ethnology, botany, and general science

In 1862 he started from London in the assumed character of an English Mohammedan gentleman, and,  proceeded to Cairo, where he lived for a considerable period in the native quarter of the city. By this time so intimately acquainted had he become with the habits and manners of Islam, that in the spring of the same year he boldly joined the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.  In 1868 Herman held a horse-flesh feast at the Falstaff Hotel in Addington Street where 35 guests sat down to some rather odd sounding meals such as Shetland pony salad and horse flesh soup. Later that year In 1868 he passed by Aleppo and the Euphrates to Shiráz, where he resided some months in 1869, employed in making himself thoroughly acquainted with the scenes and life of Persia, in order to carry out the great work of his life, a literal translation of the chief poems of the 14th century Persian poet Háfiz, which, during fifteen years, had been under revision. But on 14 March 1875, before the manuscripts had received their final corrections, his life was abruptly terminated by disease, induced or hastened by the wear of constant change of climate, exposure in mountain exploration, and by an accident in an attempt to ascend the Matterhorn. He died in London and was buried at Ramsgate.

One of Herman's brothers was a great follower of Anglo-Catholicism and it is thought that this was a reaction against their Unitarian upbringing. His father was Elhanan Bicknell the son of Wesleyan non-conformists.

 

Herman had married in 1863 at the Catholic Church, Spanish Place in Marylebone.

The church is actually St James's but its unusual name is derived from its origins. In the reign of Elizabeth I the Bishops of Ely let their palace and chapel in Ely Place to the Spanish Ambassador, and until the reign of Charles I it was occupied by the representative of the Court of Spain. During this period the chapel was freely used by English Catholics and became a place of sanctuary for them.

After the restoration of Charles II the Spanish Embassy was re-established in London. In 1791, shortly after the first repeal of some of the laws affecting Catholic worship, a chapel was built on the corner of Spanish Place.

 

The month after Herman’s death at the age of 41 in March 1875 his second wife gave birth to their only son at Upper Norwood in London having lately been at Royal Crescent in Ramsgate. She is also buried here following her death in 1905.

Their son, who was also called Herman, went on to attend St Augustine's College.  He died during the Great War and was commemorated on the Old Boys' War Memorial. 

An Observatory was erected by Edward Pugin for Bicknell which stood on the site of where the public toilets are now.

 

Plot 171 THE TALMAN FAMILY

Captain John James Talman died 2 March 1892.

In the 1891 census the Talman family are living in Harbledown having previously lived at Broadstairs.  John was a consulting civil and mechanical engineer having been a captain in the 4th Royal South Middlesex Regiment.  John was born in Beckenham in 1848. 

His was a very unfortunate death.  The newspapers of the time reported that he was found dead near Grove Ferry Station with a gunshot wound in his left side. 

 

The family had in the previous fortnight moved from Harbledown to Kingston-upon-Thames.  John had returned to stay at the Ship Inn, Upstreet to do some shooting.  He arrived at the station to go home and then disappeared and a gunshot was heard.  Nothing could be found but 2 hours later John was discovered near a gate. It was thought that John was sitting on the gate or climbing over it when the gun went off.

In 1901 John's son, Samuel who had been born in Broadstairs, joined the Honourable Artillery Company of the British Army at the age of 18.  He resigned from the Company the following year.  The headstone in the cemetery records that he died in Wellington, New Zealand on the 16th of May 1907, although death indexes for the country have his death registered in Auckland.  Samuel had emigrated to Auckland, New Zealand from South Africa in the November before his death.  There was little work in Durban at the time and Samuel was one of hundreds of men leaving the area to find work in other countries.

Another son, Francis Seal Talman, is also commemorated on the headstone.  He had joined the Navy when he was just 13 years old.  He was murdered at Pongo Store in South Africa (now part of Zimbabwe) 24 March 1896 aged 23 during the Matabeleland Rebellion.  In March 1896, the Ndebele (Matabele) people revolted against the authority of the British South Africa Company.  The Ndebele blamed the settlers for drought and locust plagues and set about killing or forcing the settlers to flee.  Francis was one of the settlers to get caught up in the brutal killings.

The first member of the Talman family to have been buried at St Augustine's was John's son Christopher, who died 1 February 1875 aged 2 months.  Then a few years later John's mother, Mary was buried here, who died 13 July 1879.  She had been living in Spencer Square in the town although the entry of her death notice in the newspaper stated she was of Oak Hall in East Ham.

 

Also buried in the family grave is John and Emma's 23 year old son James. He was working as a tutor in Weybridge but died in Margate 2 July 1893.  Emma died 21 November 1936 aged 93.

 

 

Plot 168 EUSTACE KIERAN HYLAND

The son of an Irish surgeon, James Kieran Hyland. Eustace was just 18 when he died at Ramsgate. His parents, James Kieran Hyland of Dublin and Josephine Cunningham of Chicago, had married in Rome in 1870.  The family travelled frequently between Dublin and England.  James died 6 years after his son in Paris, having moved to France because of the "depreciation of landed property in Ireland".  Eustace's brother, Rev. St George Kieran Hyland, had attended St Augustine's College and so it seems plausible that Eustace had too which is where he was when he died. This being the reason he was buried at St Augustine's.

 

CHRISTOPHER PEMBERTON BRIAN HODGSON

born 1867 in India, the son of Major General Francis Hodgson and Catherine Harraden.

And GEORGE BRYANT MARTIN BARRETT born 1867 in Abingdon, Berkshire, the son of a local magistrate.

The boys, who were attending St Augustine’s College, died a few days apart in May 1883.

 

PLOT 153 ANTONIO SARAIVA

Antonio Saraiva was Portuguese and died at the age of 90 at his home in St Peters, Broadstairs. He was Envoy for Portugal and London during the reign of Dom Miguel who claimed the Portuguese throne from his niece. This led to a difficult political situation, during which many people were killed, imprisoned, persecuted or sent into exile, and which culminated in the Portuguese Liberal Wars between authoritarian absolutists and progressive constitutionalists. In the end Miguel was forced from the throne and lived the last 32 years of his life in exile. This must have been a difficult role for Antonio as Miguel's regime had little support in England with the government here not recognising his authority to be monarch and being supportive of Miguel's niece who he had overthrown.

 

Plot 179 MANUEL ENRIQUE DE OLANO

Manuel was the Son of Roman de Olano, a clerk to the financial agency of the United States of Mexico and who also worked at the Mexican Embassy.  Roman had been born in Spain but was living in England by the time he was 6 (his father was a merchant).  Roman’s son, Manuel, who was buried here in 1903 was being nursed in Margate, at the age of 12 in the 1901 census.  The column relating to physical disabilities stated that Manuel had been 'feeble minded since birth'.

 

Hopefully this gives you a brief overview of some of the remarkable people buried here as well as demonstrating the number of countries represented here from Italy, to Spain, Mexico, Ireland, Portugal as well as England and Scotland.

 

Research by genealogist, Elizabeth Peters, Search Your Past.   www.searchyourpast.co.uk