The Memorial, dated 1870, was sculpted
by Albert Dunkley. It is a Portland stone obelisk on a square base with carved
foliage ornament. The main inscription reads:
In the
Bunhill
Fields
Burial Ground opposite
lie the remains of
Susannah
Wesley,
widow of
the Rev. Samuel Wesley M.A.
Rector of Epworth
Lincolnshire
who died July 23rd 1742
aged 78 years
She was the
youngest daughter of
the Rev. Samuel Annesley D.D.
ejected by the Act of
Uniformity
from the rectory of
St. Giles Cripplegate Aug. 24th
1662
She was the mother of
the Revs. John and Charles Wesley
the
former of whom was under God
the founder of
the Societies of the
People
called Methodists.
On the base is inscribed:
This monument
was
erected by public subscription
December 1870
This
article tells us more about
the monument and how it came to be in this location:
"Susanna Wesley, the mother of John
and Charles spent the last few years of her life, after the death of her
husband, Samuel, staying with her sons at the Foundery, the first London base of
Methodism.
She died on July 23rd 1742 aged 76
years, (although different dates appear on different inscriptions) and was
buried in Bunhill Fields by her son John.
It is quite ironical that she
should be buried in a graveyard which was set aside for those who were not
Anglicans but Dissenters of one sort or another for as a young girl she had made
a decision to leave the Dissenting faith of her parents and return to the
Anglican Church.
In the 1860s the Corporation of the
City of London invited owners of significant gravesites in Bunhill Fields to
provide new grave markers and monuments. So an obelisk was commissioned for
Susanna with the intention that it be erected over her grave in Bunhill Fields.
For some reason the authorities did not allow the obelisk to be erected in
Bunhill Fields so it was placed in the forecourt of Wesley’s Chapel, just in
front of John Wesley’s House.
A new but simpler headstone was
placed above Susanna’s grave in 1828 and yet another one, the current one, was
placed there in 1936. In 2008 this latest headstone was conserved and restored
by the City of London, who are responsible for Bunhill Fields
The Ghanaian Methodist Women’s
organisation, the Susanna Wesley Mission Auxiliary, which has a UK branch, has
taken responsibility for the cleaning of the monument to Susanna and it was
recently cleaned thanks to a kind donation from them. This is the second time
that they have taken such an initiative to keep Susann’s Memorial in good
condition.
Each July, on a Saturday close to
the death of Susanna the SUWMA-UK come to Wesley’s Chapel and have a service
around her grace and a ceremony at the Memorial.
Susanna Wesley was a very formative
influence on all her children and especially John so it is only right and proper
that we honour her, along with John and Charles, in this
place."