The Elgar Graves
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Why is Elgar Buried at St Wulstan’s?
Elgar’s father, William Henry, was brought up a Catholic, though his attitude to religion was always ambivalent. After coming to Worcester from London in 1841 he set up a music business (piano tuning and shop) and found additional work as organist at St George’s, the principal Catholic church in the city, run by the Jesuit Fathers.
In 1848 William married Ann Greening, daughter of a Herefordshire farmer. By the time Edward, the fourth of seven children, was born in 1857, Ann herself had chosen to be instructed and received into the Catholic Church by the Jesuits who employed her husband. So Edward and his younger siblings were baptised as infants and brought up Catholics. (His youngest sister became Prioress of the Dominican convent in Stroud). In his early thirties Edward Elgar married a violin pupil of his, eight years older than himself - Caroline Alice Roberts. Daughter of a Major-General in the Indian Army who had retired to the village of Redmarley at the southern end of the Malvern Hills, she was brought up in the Church of England but, after marrying Edward (in the Brompton Oratory in London), like her mother-in-law, she was instructed and received into the Catholic Church and, also like her, became deeply committed to her new religion. The Elgars changed house every few years. In March 1899 they moved into “Craeg Lea” (anagram of family initials and surname) in Malvern Wells, within the Parish of St Wulstan’s, and lived there for five years. Alice and Carice, their daughter, walked the mile to Church on Sunday mornings. Edward, when he came, arrived by bicycle. It was during the Craeg Lea years that Elgar set John Henry Newman’s deeply Catholic poem- The Dream of Gerontius – to music. Unfortunately, though his masterpiece soon afterwards achieved international recognition and esteem, the first performance was considered by Elgar to be a flop, on account of which he ceased practising his religious faith, though he was reconciled to the Church at the end of his life. Alice remained a devoted Catholic and, when she died in 1920, Edward implemented her wish to be buried in the cemetery at St Wulstan’s. In his journal for that day he wrote: “The place she chose long ago is too sweet – the blossoms are white all round and the illimitable plain, with all the hills and churches in the distance which were hers from childhood, looks just the same – inscrutable and unchanging”. Edward himself was buried in the same grave fourteen years later. The gravestone, which they share, was designed by Arthur Troyte Griffiths, the Malvern architect and close friend whom Elgar evokes in Enigma Variation number 7. |
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The Press Association reporter's account of the 1934 funeral was as follows
"Almost before the morning mists had cleared away over the Malvern Hills, which he loved so well, Sir Edward Elgar was laid to rest on Monday. He lies by the side of Lady Elgar, his beloved partner in life who died 14 years ago. The great musician went to his rest without a note of music being played. In the Catholic Church of St Wulstan's Little Malvern; a brief simple service was conducted by the Reverend GC Alston. Scarcely a score of people were present, and in fact only a few intimate friends knew of the time and place of the service. There was no mourning dress or "formal attire". The priest in robes of black and gold, had three attendants, and lighted candles threw a soft glow over the purple covered coffin. In a few minutes the congregation passed out into the little churchyard with the sunlit valley of the Severn spreading away below and the Malvern Hills rising steep behind. The smoke of incense rose on the clear morning air. There was a sprinkling of holy water and in a few minutes the little group of mourners left the grave. Sir Edward had been placed to rest. As the mourners dispersed the sky darkened and flakes of snow came drifting over falling gently on the plain oak coffin."
"Almost before the morning mists had cleared away over the Malvern Hills, which he loved so well, Sir Edward Elgar was laid to rest on Monday. He lies by the side of Lady Elgar, his beloved partner in life who died 14 years ago. The great musician went to his rest without a note of music being played. In the Catholic Church of St Wulstan's Little Malvern; a brief simple service was conducted by the Reverend GC Alston. Scarcely a score of people were present, and in fact only a few intimate friends knew of the time and place of the service. There was no mourning dress or "formal attire". The priest in robes of black and gold, had three attendants, and lighted candles threw a soft glow over the purple covered coffin. In a few minutes the congregation passed out into the little churchyard with the sunlit valley of the Severn spreading away below and the Malvern Hills rising steep behind. The smoke of incense rose on the clear morning air. There was a sprinkling of holy water and in a few minutes the little group of mourners left the grave. Sir Edward had been placed to rest. As the mourners dispersed the sky darkened and flakes of snow came drifting over falling gently on the plain oak coffin."
