Headstone of Daniel Defoe
Object
Headstone
Object number
2010.161
Physical Description
A carved headstone for the writer Daniel Defoe. This was the original headstone for Defoe which was replaced in 1870 by an obelisk monument which still stands in Bunhill Fields cemetary in Islington.
The author of Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe, lived and worked in Stoke Newington in the early 1700s. A controversial figure in his lifetime, Defoe worked as a spy, rebelled against the King, and was put in prison and in the pillory for his writings.
The author of Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe, lived and worked in Stoke Newington in the early 1700s. A controversial figure in his lifetime, Defoe worked as a spy, rebelled against the King, and was put in prison and in the pillory for his writings.
Object history
DANIEL DEFOE’S HEADSTONE, PORTSWOOD ROAD 1941
If you had walked past 56 Portswood Road between 1885 and 1945 you would have seen ‘Robinson Crusoe’ author Daniel Defoe’s headstone in the front garden.
Defoe was buried in the Dissenters’ Burial Ground in Finsbury, London in 1731. In 1870, with the help of ‘The Christian World’ subscriptions, stonemason Sanuel Horner erected an obelisk on his grave and the headstone was taken to Horner’s home in Bournemouth. It eventually ended up in the front garden of 56 Portswood Road in 1885, and in 1945 it was put on display in Stoke Newington Library, where Defoe was schooled and where he lived for his last 22 years. There is a detailed report in the Southern Evening Echo, 1982
Defoe is mostly known as a famous author, but he was also a political commentator who drew up a plan for a model township in The New Forest in 1709. It was to be populated by German refugees from the Palatine region who would be given grants and plots of land to work.
If you had walked past 56 Portswood Road between 1885 and 1945 you would have seen ‘Robinson Crusoe’ author Daniel Defoe’s headstone in the front garden.
Defoe was buried in the Dissenters’ Burial Ground in Finsbury, London in 1731. In 1870, with the help of ‘The Christian World’ subscriptions, stonemason Sanuel Horner erected an obelisk on his grave and the headstone was taken to Horner’s home in Bournemouth. It eventually ended up in the front garden of 56 Portswood Road in 1885, and in 1945 it was put on display in Stoke Newington Library, where Defoe was schooled and where he lived for his last 22 years. There is a detailed report in the Southern Evening Echo, 1982
Defoe is mostly known as a famous author, but he was also a political commentator who drew up a plan for a model township in The New Forest in 1709. It was to be populated by German refugees from the Palatine region who would be given grants and plots of land to work.
Associated Person
Material
Marble
Dimension
Height: 793mm
Width: 575mm
Depth: 53mm
Width: 575mm
Depth: 53mm
On display?
No