Inside the mausoleum: the coffins of Richard and Isabel Burton. This photograph was taken through a window atop the rear wall of the tent (accessible via steel ladder). The window was originally stained glass but is now clear. The original stained glass memorial window, commissioned and paid for by Isabel, is inside St Mary Magdalen's. " . . . "
"I was told, indeed, that the Reverend Morse believed that nothing so became a parishioner's life than the leaving of it, with a valedictory bequest to the building fund."
John Updike, A Month of Sundays (1974)
Sir Richard Burton, Explorer (1821-1890)
Too hot to handle
Burton travelled throughout Africa with John Speke and discovered Lake Tanganyika. His translations include the Kama Sutra, Perfumed Garden and Arabian Nights. The tent mausoleum was Burton's idea.
A writer, diplomat, explorer and translator, Richard Burton was born in Devon, lived in Africa, Brazil and the Middle East, and died in Trieste, Italy.
His body was returned to England, for interment in St Mary Magdalen's Roman Catholic Church, in Mortlake, southwest London.
In the nineteenth century it was widely believed that some people had been buried alive and had regained consciousness in their coffin, helpless to save themselves. Richard's wife Isabel shared this belief.
When Richard died, she arranged for an electric charge to be administered to him to verify that he was, in fact, dead.
She also left instructions that a needle should be inserted through her heart to ensure that her presumably lifeless body was actually lifeless.
Denied burial in Westminster Abbey, Richard was entombed in a stone mausoleum designed to resemble a Bedouin tent. The likeness is remarkable - from a distance, the structure looks like an actual canvas tent.
Five years after Richard's death, the mausoleum was opened to admit the remains of Isabel.
The structure, after years of neglect and vandalism, was restored and secured in 1975.
Although he earned considerable sums from his translations, his estate amounted to less than £200. His manuscripts were worth a fortune, but Isabel (1831-1896), his widow and literary executrix, promptly burned them.
Isabel was worth nearly $12,000 when she died. Her net worth had been bolstered by the approximately £10,000 she inherited from her father's £44,000 estate.
