GA-STNL-0016

A very worn Rect. R.S.. The top is damaged. The Ins. of 24 lines is Inc'd. This inscription is very worn and confusing. Fleetwood Berry (1912 A), 9 gives two segments of inscription (presumably from the start and the end of what must be the inscription on the stone). The first segment he gives as follows "Near this place within the Church is interred the body of Edwd Tankerville". This seems to account for the first three or four lines of the inscription. His reading "Edwd Tankerville" cannot be correct if what follows in our reading is correct. Lines five and six may probably be reconstructed as follows "Wife to Mr Edwd Tankerville and of — two of their children...". Fleetwood Berry ibid then leaves four blank lines and gives a reading of our lines 18-23 more or less as we have interpreted them, viz; "Here also lyeth the body of Elias Tankerville the Elder Aldm who died 14th October 1782 aged 75 years. He served the office of Mayr 1776 and was 4 times Sheriff of this Corpn Enquire his character". The inscription is inaccurate in some of its details. Hardiman (1820), 227 gives the date of his Mayorship as 1775 and lists him as sheriff on only three occasions. (Hardiman (1820), 225-6). According to Hely Dutton (1824), however, Elias was sheriff in 1749, 1756 1764 and 1770 and was mayor in 1775.