A nice birthday lunch and The Massacre of Málaga
The Entrance to The English Cemetery, Málaga.
It was my birthday last week so off we went to Málaga for a slap up celebratory lunch in a posh place by the lighthouse. Very nice too. On the way we called in at the English Cemetery down on the road to Velez Málaga (Avenida de Pries) ; an unusual birthday venue, I admit, but it was nearby , we had an hour to kill (no pun intended) and it's just the place to work up an appetite.
The English Cemetery has been there since 1831 and should really be called 'The Non-Catholic Cemetery' as there are 'heretics' buried there from all over the place, including Germany and Oldham.
There are no burials allowed in the cemetery these days because the city has grown around it and burials there would now break local laws. For a cemetery it is quite a beautiful and interesting place, not least because it contains the graves of Gerald Brenan, his wife Gamel Woolsey and Robert Boyd. I'll be bending your ear in the next blog about Mr. and Mrs. Brenan but as Robert Boyd was very the first resident he deserves a mention.
Back in 1831 any non Catholics who died in Málaga did not rate a 'decent' burial so their bodies were buried in an upright position at the dead of night in the sand of a nearby beach. This was before the advent of mass tourism and beach volleyball.
If a corpse was not washed out to sea the local dogs would tuck in ; a balanced diet being achieved by the organic rubbish which was dumped in the same place.
William Mark
The British Consul,
William Mark, regarded this state of affairs 'with great grief and disgust' and 'his blood curdled at the thought that Englishmen should be buried thus'.
Mark wrote to the British Government and the governor general of Málaga and was eventually granted a piece of land on a hillside on the road to Velez for the burial of British subjects.
It is reported that he waited with eager anticipation for his first client who turned out to be George Stephens, owner of the brig 'Cicero' who fell into Malaga harbour and drowned. There is no evidence that he was pushed and William Mark knew nothing about the accident until the next day. A big crowd attended the burial.
Mark then asked the Earl of Aberdeen for 200 pounds to build a wall to enclose the cemetery which was granted. The builders dug the foundations slightly away from the planned area (typical!!) and so left poor old George Stephens outside the cemetery. The first burial to take place inside the walls was that of
Robert Boyd.
Lieutenant Robert Boyd (1805-1831)
Robert Boyd was an impressionable young Irishman who had followed the exploits of 'mad , bad and dangerous to know' Lord Byron in Greece. Byron had died in 1824 while fighting for Greek Independence from the Turks and was widely aclaimed as a hero.
Boyd was a soldier with the East India Company. He resigned his commission and inherited 4000 pounds. At about the same time he fell in with a group of London intellectuals and other malcontents who were very angry about the behaviour of King Ferdinand VII of Spain. They had all fallen under the spell of
General José María de Torrijos y Uriate, 'a handsome and charming man of noble birth with a lively intellect and impetuous courage' but not much cash who was exiled in London after falling out with the King.
General José María de Torrijos y Uriate (1791-1831)
You can see by the dates of these two chaps that things are not going to turn out well.
Torrijos had a plan to invade Spain to overthrow King Ferdinand but needed money to charter a boat. Boyd was happy to stump up a few thousand and everybody got ready for the adventure.
The British government did not want to upset Spain at this time so the boat, 'Mary' was seized and embargoed before it left for Gibraltar. Not to be put off, the 50 or so conspirators set off individually for Gib. and met up later. They included Torrijos, Boyd, some ex ministers of Spain, an apothecary, a lawyer, two commercial travellers, two tailors, a monk, a clock-maker and a musician.
After a few months they set off from Gibralter to invade Spain but the Governor of Gibraltar captured them and gave them a severe talking to.
Eventually the rebel forcé of 80 men left Gibraltar and landed 20 miles away at Getares near Algeciras. They marched on Estepona where they were thrashed by Spanish troops and the survivers limped back to Gibraltar. All prisoners were shot in accordance with Spanish law (!?).
By this time the British Authorities were getting fed up with all this and wanted all the conspirators out of Gibraltar as they were putting off tourists and investment bankers.
Torrijos was undeterred and on November 30th. 1831 he set off again with 50 men and a cabin boy, who knew nothing of the plot, to invade Málaga believing that 2,500 troops of the Málaga garrison were waiting to support him. After sailing for two days they landed at Fuengirola and wandered through the hills just near here until they came to
Alhaurín de la Torre, which you can see from our back wall. Here they were welcomed and given food and drink before being arrested on December 3rd. by the Governer of Málaga,
Vincente Gonzalez Moreno , later known as 'The Butcher of Málaga'. You can see what's coming next.
Instead of doing the right thing and shooting everybody on the spot, Moreno took the rebels and the cabin boy back to Málaga and had them shot there.
The executions of Torrijos, Boyd, the rebels and the little cabin boy.
December 11th. 1831
Boyd and Torrijos were the last to be shot. When William Mark heard that there was an Englishman among the prisoners he sent off a letter straight away to London asking the British Government to intervene. (the postal service has since deteriorated). Palmerston wrote;
'As to Mr Boyd, ...his death was justifiable according to the laws of nations. Mr Boyd was found in arms acting against Spain, acting against its authorities, in union with persons who were considered traitors to its government.’
The prisoners were taken to St. Andrew's Beach and massacred ; even the little cabin boy who had been taken under the wing of a Carmelite monk and had to be dragged out of his arms by force. The monk was later found to be 'out of his mind'.
Mark went down in his carraige to collect the corpse which was buried within the walls of the English Cemetery.
Robert Boyd's Grave
The English Cemetery is now run by
The English Cemetery in Malaga Foundation, a Spanish charity. The vice president is the charming
Mrs. Rosella Parmiter who runs the small shop and visitors' centre there.
She'd love to see you.
June 5th. 2013
