Burials and Memorials

The Abbey at night, from Dean's Yard. Artificial light reveals the exoskeleton formed by flying buttresses. Henry III rebuilt the Abbey in honour of the Royal Saint Edward the Confessor whose memorial and relics were placed in the Sanctuary. Henry III was buried nearby as were the Plantagenet kings of England, their wives and relatives. Subsequently, most Kings and Queens of England were buried here, although Henry VIII and Charles I are buried at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, as are all monarchs and royals since George II.

Aristocrats were buried in side chapels and monks and people associated with the Abbey were buried in the Cloisters and other areas. One of these was Geoffrey Chaucer, who was buried here as he had apartments in the Abbey where he was employed as master of the Kings Works. Other poets were buried around Chaucer in what became known as Poets' Corner. Abbey musicians such as Henry Purcell were also buried in their place of work. Subsequently it became an honour to be buried or memorialised here. The practice spread from aristocrats and poets to generals, admirals, politicians, scientists, doctors, etc., etc. These include:

Buried

Westminster Abbey with a procession of Knights of the Bath, by Canaletto, 1749

Nave

•Clement Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee
•Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts
•Charles Darwin
•James Clerk Maxwell
•J.J. Thompson
•Saint Edward the Confessor
•Ben Jonson
•David Livingstone
•Sir Isaac Newton
•Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford
•William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
•The Unknown Warrior
•George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham
•Ludovic Stewart, 2nd Duke of Lennox
•Thomas Tompion
•George Graham

North Transept

•William Ewart Gladstone
•William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham
•William Pitt the Younger

South Transept

The north entrance of Westminster Abbey Poets' Corner

•Robert Adam
•Robert Browning
•William Camden
•Thomas Campbell
•Geoffrey Chaucer
•William Congreve
•Abraham Cowley
•William Davenant
•Charles Dickens
•John Dryden
•Adam Fox
•David Garrick
•John Gay
•George Frederick Handel
•Thomas Hardy
•Dr Samuel Johnson
•Rudyard Kipling
•Thomas Macaulay
•John Masefield
•Laurence Olivier, Baron Olivier
•Thomas Parr
•Richard Brinsley Sheridan
•Edmund Spenser
•Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson

Cloisters

•Aphra Behn

North Choir Aisle

•Henry Purcell
•Ralph Vaughan Williams

Commemorated

Standard of Westminster Abbey

•William Shakespeare, buried Stratford-upon-Avon
•Sir Winston Churchill, buried Bladon, Oxfordshire
•Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, buried Hughenden Manor, Buckinghamshire
•Adam Lindsay Gordon, buried Australia
•Paul Dirac, buried Florida
oOscar Wilde(in a stained glass window unveiled in 1995)[1]
•Ten 20-century Christian martyrs from across the world are depicted in statues above the Great West Door. Unveiled in 1998, these are, from left to right:
oSt. Maximilian Kolbe
oManche Masemola
oJanani Luwum
oElizabeth of Russia
oMartin Luther King, Jr.
oÓscar Romero
oDietrich Bonhoeffer
oEsther John
oLucian Tapiedi
oWang Zhiming

Removed

The following were buried in the abbey but later removed on the orders of Charles II

•Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector
•Admiral Robert Blake

Schools

Westminster School and Westminster Abbey Choir School are also on the grounds of the Abbey. Westminster School was originally founded by the Benedictine monks in 1179.