Family Lessons 141: Warnings at Redbourne

My 5x great-grandparents, George Atkinson and Elizabath Carline, married at St Andrew’s Church at Redbourn, Lincolnshire, on 24 May, 1790. My 4x great-grandmother, Ann, was duly baptised here on 9 October, 1792. The Atkinsons had been living in this parish for as long as records survive, which is at least another six generations back, so this church was a scene of happiness (weddings and baptisms) and sorrow (family funerals).

Just a few feet from the font, however, where new human beings were formally welcomed into the world, is the tombstone of one Thomas Waterhouse, dating to November, 1723 (who died aged 80 which means he was born during the civil war). His memorial ends with a little ditty, which concludes:

Prepare thyself to follow me

Stark, certainly. Not all babies survive their infancies, and all couples who married in that eighteenth century after Christ are now deceased. So whether we go through joy or pain, through celebration or commiseration, it does us much good to remember the inevitability of death, and the certainty of Christ’s victory over it. Whether the Atkinsons paid their former neighbour much attention at their wedding and baptism, or dismissed his eery admonishment as an irrelevance, time shall tell.