A Bedouin Tent in West London

The Roman Catholic Church of Saint Mary Magdalen is down a long lane near the railway tracks in the London suburb of Mortlake. Built in 1846, it served a community of mostly Irish immigrants fleeing starvation and poverty in their homeland. There are a number of interesting graves in the churchyard, including John Bentley, the architect of Westminster Cathedral, and the Prince of Paris, Pretender to the throne of France.

The gravestones and monument are dwarfed by one surprising feature - a large tomb in the shape of an Arab tent - the last resting place of Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton KCMG FRCS (1821-1890) and his wife Isabel Arundell (1831-1896). Burton was an explorer, scholar, diplomat, soldier, linguist, poet and orientalist. Among his many achievements were: travelling in Arabia to Mecca, a city closed to all except Muslims, and making the Hajj disguised as a Muslim. He explored in Africa with Speke, investigating the great lakes area: Tanganiyka, Victoria, and Albert, partly hoping to find the source of the Nile.

His military career was in the army of the East India Company, and later, in the Crimean War.

Burton was an early anti-imperialist who wrote against colonial policy publicly and privately, a position which probably damaged his diplomatic career.

He was a prolific author, best known for his translations of erotic classics such as the Kama Sutra and the Book of a Thousand and One Nights and The Perfumed Garden. He also published on his travels in equatorial Africa, on swords and swordsmanship, and on his travels in Arabia.

He died on his last diplomatic posting, in Trieste. His distraught wife who had followed him on many of his travels to hostile and unhealthy climates built the remarkable mausoleum to house him, and eventually, herself.

The tomb is a square stone tent, carved to show the folds and drapes of the original it is modelled on. Inside are the two coffins, and, in keeping with the bedouin tent theme, strings of camel bells and hanging glass lanterns. At the rear of the tomb is a short ladder leading up to a viewing window.

There are two stone plaques on one side. The first is a simple memorial with the names and dates of Burton and Isabel. The second is a valedictory poem by Justin Huntley McCarthy, describing in a rather overwrought fashion, the loss to the world.

“Oh last and noblest of the errant knights,

The English Soldier or the Arab Sheik”

may well be one of the best descriptions of the turbulent and divided nature of Richard Burton.

The tomb of Richard and Isabel BurtonInside the tomb

The Churchyard