Campbell-Walker plot

Location

Plot number (FHS)	340
Row	31
Section	175
Date

......

Campbell-Walker plot

Plot number:
31,175
Family name:
Campbell-Walker
Burial date:

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Who is buried here?

Read about the lives of the 2 people buried here — click on a name to view a biography.

Katharine Maria Campbell-Walker (340)

05/02/1844 –18/12/1874

Daughter of an army Captain and wife of Arthur Campbell-Walker of the Royal Body Guard

05/02/1844 –18/12/1874

Daughter of an army Captain and wife of Arthur Campbell-Walker of the Royal Body Guard

Relatives

Arthur Campbell Campbell-Walker — son

Arthur Campbell Walker — husband

Research:

James Moir

Katherine Maria Barlow, was born in Kensington, the daughter of a Captain in the army. She married Arthur Campbell-Walker a Captain in the Royal Body Guard in 1865 and they had two sons, Arthur (b. 1866) and Leslie; neither was born in Berkhamsted, so it would appear that the couple only spent a very short time in the town.

In 1871 Katherine and her family visited her mother Caroline De Vitre, by then a widow aged 46 (she had married Matthew de Vitre, a landowner 31 years her senior).

Katherine died in 1844 at the young age of 30. Tragically, in 1881 her eldest son also died young at the age of only 15, and is buried here with his mother, and Leslie died when he was only 1 year old. Widower Arthur commissioned the ornate Celtic cross for Katherine’s grave.

Katharine’s monumental cross is a good example of its type, with an interesting mix of influences.

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Family name	Campbell-Walker
Burial date	Not known
Burial capacity	Full (Full used)
Burial depth	Not known
From burial books?
Burial visible (2019)?
Burial visible (1991)?

Buried here is Katharine Maria, wife of Capt. Arthur Campbell-Walker, and Arthur, their eldest son. Capt. Arthur Campbell-Walker, buried in the adjoining plot, commissioned the Celtic cross that marks Katharine’s grave here.

Katharine’s monumental cross is a good example of its type, with an interesting mix of influences. As a strong military man (late 79th Highlanders, later of her Majesty’s Body Guards) and author of two books, her husband Arthur Campbell-Walker who commissioned the cross was clearly very well-educated and the cross reflects this learning. The mix of influences are seen in the use of a Celtic Cross. Clearly with his name and this evidence, Campbell-Walker was a Scotsman., although she was a Londoner by birth. This memorial is therefore making a statement as much about his heritage, his roots.

In loving memory of Katharine Maria, wife of Capt Arthur Campbell Walker late 79th Highlanders
Born Feb 5 1844 died Dec 18 1871
Loved Loving and Lovely

The Celtic cross also, strangely has a Latin inscription at the top with four inscriptions in the four quadrants.

This inscription is found on other memorials of the period, such as the Lord Wantage Monument on the Ridgeway in Oxfordshire, or the Celtic Cross on Gibbet Hill, Hindhead, Surrey.

These give a quite complex set of messages. Note that there is no reference to Christ, or God but the sequence suggests a kind of logical journey of five steps.

In obitu Pax (In death, peace)
– appropriate to a military man – the antidote to fighting the good fight is peace. Frequently the sense of peace is associated with sleep. Beyond Darkness Light.
Post Obitum salus (Beyond death, salvation)
referring to the Christian message of eternal life
Post tenebras Lux (Beyond darkness, light)
This was a rallying cry of Protestant Reformers and the Calvinist motto, referring to the rediscovery of Biblical truth in a time of spiritual darkness.
In luce spes (In light, hope)
Having encountered the light there is hope.

And then in the centre of the cross:

Mors janua vita (Death, the door to life)
Summing up the journey at the centre is the door to life – essentially an ‘inversion’ where death itself becomes a new life. This phrase is derived from the Book of Revelation in the Bible:

After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.
Revelation 4:1

At the very base of the monument is a disarmingly simple and poignant secular epitaph in English, which strikes a surprisingly contemporary and completely different note to the quite formulaic, very impersonal Latin:

Loved, loving, lovely

Condition: good