Foreign News: Inadequate Abbey

Last week the Cathedrals Commission suggested that Westminster Abbey be enlarged to make more room for Britain’s illustrious dead—an entirely anticipatoryproposal.

George Bernard Shaw, master of brilliant self-publicity, commented: “I am still alive; I am not ready for it.” Facetious? Apparently; for nobody, so far as could be ascertained, had even suggested that he was a fit candidate, as a corpse, for burial in the “hallowed precincts of Westminster.” But one dignitary of the church, eschewing publicity, made what was probably a subconscious but none the less effective rejoinder. Said he: “The Abbey is crammed with memorials of respectable nonentities, buried there by friends who could afford it.”*

In truth, according to a statement issued by a committee headed by the Archbishop of York, the Right Honorable and Most Reverend Cosmo Gordon Lang, there is no room in the Abbey for memorials to future eminent dead. Said the Archbishop: “The time has now come when the nation must decide whether or not Westminster Abbey is to retain the place it has held for centuries as the shrine of the nations memorials to great men and women. Delay in making this decision is no longer possible.”

Three suggestions were made: 1) To build an extension behind the north transept of the Abbey on the St. Margaret Church side. 2) To build a cloistered extension behind Henry VII’s chapel, adjoining Charter House. 3) To erect an independent hall of fame. A site suggested is that of the Westminster Hospital, opposite the Abbey.

The first two suggestions were scotched by the Dean of Westminster, the very Reverend William Foxley Morris, with whom the final decision in the matter rests and who gave it to be understood that no extension building of any kind would be made for at least ten years.

The press, however, favored an independent hall for the famed dead, while an addition to the Abbey was favored by the Cathedral Commission, which recommended the raising of $2,500,000 in the Commonwealth and the U. S., “who value and venerate these noble buildings as a priceless heritage of our Christian civilization,” for repairs to various English cathedrals.

The fight for an extension to Westminster Abbey has now been waged for 72 years, with definite result seemingly as far off as ever.

*As late as 100 years ago a burial in Westminster Abbey could be obtained for as little as $270.