Childbirth and a Bleeding Cancer

 

All Saints, Long Whatton, Leicestershire

(Click on an image for a larger version)

 

 

 

We like churchyards that contain slate gravestones because they remain legible for hundreds of years.

 

 

Mary Garner died "of a bleeding cancer". This must have been a particularly nasty way to die in the era before widespread pain relief medication was available.

 

 

Mrs Martha Townley died in "Child Bed". We can only recall one other example of the title "Mrs" being used on a gravestone. Sadly death during and immediately after childbirth was relatively common in the early 1800s.

 

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