Welford Road Cemetery
Leicester

Henry Lankester 1825-1901

The inscription reads:

In ever loving memory / of / Henry Lankester / MRCS JP.
Born November 3 1825 / Died January 30 1902.
Also of / Rachel Crosby / wife of the above
Born October 7 1830 / Died April 16 1919.
Also of their son / Edwin Allan Lankester
who died February 16 1945 / Aged 83 years.
Also wife of the above / Everlyn Mary Lankester
who died October 5 1957 / aged 85 years.

Henry Lankester, a medical doctor who had been born in Poole, moved
to Leicester in 1854. He soon built up a large practice in the town as well as being Surgeon to the Midland Railway Company. In politics he was a Liberal and was Mayor in 1889. As well as attending to his medical duties, Henry Lankester found time to serve as President of the Band of Hope, Director of the Leicester Coffee and Cocoa Company and President of the Ragged School Mission.

Samuel Laxton

This
monument is erected by
an affectionate wife
to the memory of
her beloved husband
Samuel Laxton
Late of the Market Place
in this town
who was suddenly called away
on the 1st of January 1856
aged 46 years.

Fred Lee 1886-1912
In ever loving memory of / Fred / the dearly beloved son of / Fred and Louie Lee
Who fell asleep May 5 1912 / aged 26 years.
Also Beattie his wife / who died August 2 1911 / aged 23 years.
Also Dot, daughter of Fred and Louie Lee / who died June 2 1932 / aged 43 years.

This was the only monument in the cemetery displaying photographs of the deceased. Sadly, however, mindless vandals used the photographs for shotgun target practice.
The two main pictures show 'before' and 'after'.

George Legg

This monument to Dr George Legg,
the renowned minister at the Gallowtree Gate chapel, also marks the last resting place of those who were buried in that chapel's burial ground.
The remains being transferred here when the chapel was demolished and the land sold. One of the notables buried here is Dr Mary Royce.

Mary Royce's (1846-1892), is remembered for the Royce Institute, which she originally founded give young men a basic education. She was also one of the first women in England
to train as a doctor

George Löhr 1821-1897

In loving memory of George Augustus Löhr:
April XX 1821 August XX 1897

George Augustus Löhr was the first
full-time professional church organist
in Leicester. Born in Norwich, Löhr received his early music training as a chorister at Magdalen College, Oxford before attending the universities
of Leipzig and Munich.

On his return to England he became Assistant to Dr Zachariah Buck of Norwich Cathedral, before coming to Leicester, as organist of St Margaret’s Church, in 1845. In 1856 he founded the Leicester Amateur Harmonic Society, a group of musicians that survived for 27 years before a lack of
tenors and basses caused it to fold.

September 1861 saw the first of many annual music festivals organised by Löhr when over 200 singers from the associated choirs of the district sung in a packed St John’s Church. The largest of these festivals was in 1867 when nineteen choirs with over
three-hundred choristers took part.

That Löhr was a very conservative musician can be seen from the fact that it was not
until 1876, and then only after much persuasion from his sons and other young
musicians, that he consent to have the organ tuned to concert pitch.

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© 2001 Leicester Research