3-074-658 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Removal of the remains of William Harvey at Hempstead Church, Essex, 1883. '1. Hempstead Church. 2. Carrying the Remains to the Harvey Chapel. 3. Sealing the Sarcophagus in the Chapel...The illustrious scientific anatomist of the seventeenth century, William Harvey, who discovered the circulation of the blood, died in 1657, and was buried at Hempstead, in Essex...The old parish church of Hempstead contains a chapel erected by the Harvey family, in which are several monuments of the Harveys, but the remains of that eminent physician have been lying, till now, in a vault beneath the chapel...Harvey was a most distinguished member of the Royal College of Physicians...The President and Fellows of the College, with the consent of the Vicar of Hempstead, and of the persons now living most nearly connected with Harvey's family, have provided a handsome marble sarcophagus, in which, on Thursday week, the coffin with his remains, having been carefully removed from the obscure vault, were reverently deposited, in the chapel above mentioned, with a view to protect William Harvey's bones and dust from risk of future desecration, and in order that their final resting-place should be within view of pious visitors to the sequestered village church'. From "Illustrated London News", 1883.