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Burial Grounds on the Floriana Bastions: The Consecration of the Protestant Cemeteries in 1843 – Mike Hinton
from Vigilo 57 July 2022
by dinlarthelwa
Fig. 1: A plan of the western fortifications of Valletta and the Floriana lines signed by Brigadier W.B. Tylden, 25 January 1855 (The National Archives: MPHH 1/687).
BURIAL GROUNDS
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ON THE FLORIANA BASTIONS
By Mike Hinton
One of my 2x great-grandfathers served throughout the Crimean War with the 49th Regiment and it is almost certain he would have stopped at Malta on his way to or back from the Crimea. I first became aware of the Msida Garden of Rest in 2005 and found several tombstones of individuals who were associated with the campaign in one way or another. I have visited the cemetery several times since and consulted surviving records at The National Archives at Kew. Some documents relate to its consecration—and the consternation this caused the military authorities in London— and on further enquiry, for some of the residents in Malta. This essay summarises the issues which were clearly of importance at the time; though after nearly 180 years some may seem to be little more than an irksome ‘storm in a teacup’.
Fig. 2: George Tomlinson c.1842–1850. Lithograph by C. J. Hullmandel after George Richmond (©National Portrait Gallery: NPG D39643).
Four relatively small non-Catholic cemeteries were situated on the northern side of Floriana overlooking the Marsamxett (Quarantine) Harbour. Interments had commenced there in the nineteenth century shortly after Malta became a British protectorate. These comprised the Msida Bastion cemetery, known as the ‘Garden of Rest’,1 and the Quarantine, Greek Orthodox, and Cholera cemeteries. These three were damaged by bombing during the Second World War and the land is now occupied by the Grand Hotel Excelsior and car parks. They were located within the outer defence works of Valletta and were thus the responsibility of the military authorities.2
Construction in this locality had been commissioned initially by Grand Master Antoine de Paule in 1635 and designed by the Italian engineer Pietro Paolo Floriani. Two French engineers, De Tigne and Mondion were employed to complete the works and the retrenchments (secondary works) constructed to the rear of the Msida and Quarantine bastions (Fig. 1).3
Dowager Queen Adelaide, the widow of William IV, visited Malta in 1838. She appreciated that the Anglican community needed a church in Valletta, rather than having to use the relatively small chapel in the Governor’s Palace which ‘served the needs of the civil population as well as the garrison families.’ She funded the building of the collegiate church of St Paul and laid the foundation stone on 20th March 1839. The building was consecrated on 1st November 1844, although she was not present.4
William Burton Tylden assumed command of the Royal Engineers in Malta in May 1840 and one of his assignments, with Colonel George Judd Harding RE, a Peninsular War veteran, was to ‘examine and report upon the military defences of the island, so as to put them forthwith in such an efficient state, as to render the city of Valetta, and the towns of Senglea (L-Isla), Vittoriosa (Birgu) and Cospicua (Bormla) impregnable and tenable’.5 Tylden’s wife Lecilina died in Valletta in 1845 and was buried initially in the Msida Bastion cemetery but her remains were later repatriated6 and interred in the family vault at Milstead, Kent.
George Tomlinson (Fig. 2) was consecrated Bishop of Malta and Gibraltar in Westminster Abbey on 29th August 1842.7 It was planned that on his arrival at Valletta, ‘the yards of the ships in port will be manned and a salute fired on his landing’.8 He landed from the frigate HMS Belvedere on 14th December though he ‘experienced a most awfully terrific squall in entering the harbour, which the vessel did under a jib’.9 Shortly afterwards he was installed as the Bishop of Gibraltar in the Palace chapel in Valletta.10, 11
The need of additional land for burials was granted by the Government of Malta (see below) and this and the existing cemeteries, which were hitherto unconsecrated, were consecrated by Tomlinson on 25th January 1843 in the presence of ‘all the clergy in the island and the chaplains of the fleet … together with a large concourse of spectators both English and Maltese’. The sight of an English bishop with ten clergymen in surplices walking in procession was quite a new thing on the island and the consecration seemed to ‘excite much interest’12 as it was ‘the first time, other than church parades, that there had been a public Anglican ceremony in Malta’.13
The service of dedication provided for a considerable extension of the existing burial grounds (see Figs 3 and 4 for a contemporary plan and one drawn during the Crimean War) which proved controversial as it provoked a reaction from two different quarters; the military authorities in England and the members of Protestant denominations other than the Church of England in Malta.
The Inspection Officers of Ordnance on the island, that is the Commanders of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers—Lieutenant Colonels James Stokes Bastard and William Burton Tylden—sought permission from the Governor, Lieutenant General Sir Henry Bouverie, to proceed with an enlargement of the cemeteries. This was granted without reference to the authorities in London, but on the ‘clear understanding that the erection of no monuments is to be allowed which can in any way interfere with the defence of the place, and which are not in accordance with such rules as may be laid down by the commanding Royal Engineer’.14
However, when the Board of Ordnance in London was informed they censured Bastard and Tylden for ‘having permitted the consecration of a portion of the fortifications of Malta without having referred the question for their decision’. In their reply to the Board they pointed out, inter alia, that it was necessary because of ‘the unusual dryness of the soil and rock of this island decomposition is very slow in progress rendering it many years before the same ground can be used again, and thus requiring a large surface than would otherwise be the case in most cemeteries’. It was stressed
that the act of consecration did not convey any authority over the ground to the bishop. There was, however, no suggestion of the area being deconsecrated, though the Master General of Ordnance, Sir George Murray, directed ‘that a reference shall, in future, be always made to [the Board] before any such concession is allowed’.
The second objection centred on the tradition prior to the consecration when the cemeteries were treated as ‘common property’ and were available for the Presbyterian and Episcopalian [and Greek Orthodox] alike but they were now disadvantaged as the whole area had been consecrated by the Anglican Church. The Malta Times considered that Bishop Tomlinson had ‘committed a most unjustifiable act’ and there was no excuse for him ‘taking the sole possession of that, a part of which had been for half a century the undoubted property of other religious bodies … The Scotch are [thus] greater fools than anybody … if they put up quietly with such a barefaced grasping act of intolerant bigotry and injustice’.15 In the event the additional ground consecrated was used for less than fifteen years until the Ta’ Braxia cemetery near the Porte des Bombes was opened in 1857.16 The first recorded interment there was a twenty year-old Crimean War veteran, Lieutenant and Adjutant T. Coakely, 21st Fusiliers, who died on 30th October.17
It appears that the reprimand from London did not affect the careers of either Bastard or Tylden. Bastard was promoted to lieutenant general on his retirement from the army while after his tour in Malta Tylden returned home to command the Royal Engineers in the South Eastern Military District based in Dover. In 1854 he was appointed as a brigadier to command the Engineers in the British Army of the East at the outset of what was to become known as the Crimean War. He died of cholera shortly after the battle of the Alma on 22nd September 1854 with his remains being repatriated after the war for interment in the family vault.
Tomlinson married Louisa daughter of the then Governor of Malta, Lieutenant General the Hon Sir Patrick Stuart, in 1848. She died in 1850 and in 1855 he married Eleanor Jane, the daughter of Colonel Charles Mackenzie Fraser. He died at Gibraltar on 6th February 1863 aged 68, and was buried in the Ta’ Braxia cemetery where his grave (No. A33) can be seen.18 n
Acknowledgements:I am grateful to Majorie Bonnici, Paolo Ferrelli, Brian Tarpey, and Andy Welsh (in Malta) and Douglas Austin, Phebe Camberlain, Lena Jordan, Tony Margave, Colin Robins, and Joyce Whitaker (in the UK) for assistance in various ways over the years.
Fig. 3: the Protestant cemeteries are in red and the additional area consecrated in blue, and a view from Fort Manoel, May 2017.
Fig. 4: The Protestant cemeteries in a plan dated 29 March 1856 (The National Archives: MFQ 1/220), and a view from Fort Manoel, May 2017.
NOTES: (1) Andy N. Welsh, The Msida Bastion Garden of Rest (Malta: Din l-Art Ħelwa, 1995 & 1999) and Stanley Farrugia Randon, Heritage Saved: Historic Monuments Restored by Din l-Art Ħelwa 1965 to 2002 (Malta: Din l-Art Ħelwa, 2002). Details of the cemetery are available on the internet; (2) For information on the island’s defences see Stephen C. Spiteri, A Visual Guide to the Fortifications of Malta (Malta: BDL Publishing, 2017); (3) J. Cannon, ed., The Msida Bastion Cemetery, Malta. (Hedgerley, Bucks: Cannon Associates, 1990); (4) Morning Post, 26 July 1842 and Malta Times, 5 November 1844. The construction and future development of St Paul’s Anglican pro-cathedral have been described in extenso by A.N. Keighley, Queen Adelaide’s Church Malta (2000). St Andrews Scots church in Valletta was opened in 1857; (5) Naval and Military Gazette, quoted in the Caledonian Mercury, 12 June 1844; (6) Mrs Tylden’s tombstone was recorded in a survey carried out in the 1930s and was probably destroyed during WWII; (7) The diocese of Gibraltar was created on 29 September 1842 and covered all Anglican chaplaincies from Portugal to the Caspian Sea. Since 1980 it has formed part of the diocese of Europe; (8) Morning Chronicle, 17 December 1842; (9) Morning Post, 27 December 1842; (10) Malta Times, 20 December 1842; The National Archives (TNA): CO 163/24; (11) Accounts of Tomlinson’s episcopate can be found in H.J.C. Knight, The Diocese of Gibraltar: A Sketch of the History, Work and Tasks (London: SPCK, 1917), 50–54 and Keighley (2000), 32–44. Neither referred to the consecration of the Protestant cemeteries; (12) Malta Times, 18 April 1843; TNA: CO 163/25; (13) E.A. Shortland-Jones, St Paul’s Pro-Cathedral, Valetta (Valletta: 2000); (14) This paragraph and the rest of this commentary are based on a bundle of letters filed together as ‘Malta: Consecration of burying ground at north entrenchment (plan). General question of consecrating any part of the fortifications’, in TNA: WO 44/138; (15) Malta Times, 27 September 1847 and quoted by Keighley (2000), 33; (16) Keighley (2000); (17) TNA: WO 156/113; (18) Accounts of Tomlinson’s episcopate are in H.J.C. Knight, 50–54; while Keighley (2000), 32–44 provided details of his ministry in Malta. Neither referred to the consecration of the cemeteries.
