Graves and Monuments of the Philanthropist John Howard: on the Attitude to the Memory of the Righteous Man After Death

Abstract

After the death of J. Howard in 1790, near Kherson, on the bank of the Verevchyna brook, a brick monument-obelisk was erected on a cubic base, surrounded by stone pillars with cast-iron chains. The first traveller who visited it in 1797 was the Austrian B. Hackett, but the descriptions and drawings of R. Herber and E. Clark in 1800 and 1806 are much better known. At the same time, Count V. Pototsky intended to rebury the ashes of J. Howard in the Kovalivka estate in Podillia.

In 1817, Alexander I, on the initiative of Prof. A. Degurov, ordered the reconstruction of the monument and the installation of a sundial on it: the obelisk was replaced with a marble column around 1822. In 1818, it was decided to erect a new obelisk near the Kherson prison and cemetery and to make a clock on it. In 1825, Count M. Vorontsov proposed installing a sundial on the tombstone (according to his will). The marble slab was ordered in Italy, but was not received in time due to the war with Turkey. In 1822, a plaster medallion with the profile of J. Howard was sent from England and cast in bronze. For its installation, the design of the obelisk monument was changed; all reconstruction work was completed in 1828. In 1831, the sundial took its place on the tombstone, around which a new fence was erected.

After 1840 the grave was attempted to be robbed, and in 1851 the cemetery on the Stepanivskyi farms (on the land of Gunaropulo) was fenced off with a stone wall. Later data on the condition of the grave, tombstone and fence are missing until the reburial of Howard’s ashes in the cemetery of the village of Stepanivka in 1957, while the authorities explained it by the need to expand the quarry for stone mining. In addition, the article describes the commemorative celebrations in Kherson on the occasion of the philanthropist’s 100^th Anniversary.