That hero of the nation and of the Exe estuary, Captain George Peacock, R.N., F.R.G.S. died at Liverpool on 6th June 1883. His corpse was brought to Starcross for burial. The funeral took place on Tuesday, 12th June. Many of the shops in the place were closed and the residents respectfully drew their blinds and "the majority of the inhabitants of the town either followed the corpse to the grave or assembled in the cemetery to see the last of one who was held in such esteem by all parties." The many mourners, Peacock's only daughter being the chief-mourner, walked behind the hearse from Regent House, his home, to the churchyard.
The open hearse, a novelty at the time, was drawn by four horses with silver-mounted harness. It was profusely decorated with flowers supplied by Veitch of Exeter. It was a three-coffin funeral. The body lay in a shell coffin (a thin, inferior coffin) within one of lead, within one of brass-bound oak. The flags on the Quay and of the vessels in the harbour flew at half-mast. At the end of the service the organist played the Dead March from Handel's Oratorio, Saul, and Peacock was laid to rest, where his wife and his three sons were buried or remembered, in the family vault on the south side of the churchyard
The newspaper report in The Gazette ends: "Captain Peacock died rather suddenly, as is shown by the fact that his yacht the Swan of the Exe and the little Cygnet boat were being prepared for his use this summer."
("For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net.")
Source: Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 13th June 1883. (and Ecclesiastes!)
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