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The Poet Buried Standing Up in Westminster Abbey

By Weird Burial Stories Editorial Desk · 2026-10-07

Ben Jonson died in poverty in August 1637 and is the only person buried upright in Westminster Abbey, in the north aisle of the nave. In 1849 a clerk of works saw his leg bones still fixed upright in the sand.

By C. V. Wooster

Ben Jonson, who died in great poverty in August 1637, is the only person buried upright in Westminster Abbey, standing in the northern aisle of the nave and not in Poets' Corner. The Abbey records two stories about a grave only two feet square, and an 1849 disturbance in which the clerk of works saw his leg bones fixed upright in the sand.

The death, and the two stories

Westminster Abbey's own commemoration is the account to follow. It calls Jonson dramatist and poet, and it states the distinction in one sentence: he "is the only person buried in an upright position in Westminster Abbey." A London Walks podcast, in an episode dated to 28 March, says the same thing in nearly the same words: he is the only person in the Abbey buried standing up. The podcast then leaves the tale to the Abbey tour. The Abbey page does not leave it. It tells it.

The facts box on that page gives his death as 6 August 1637. The prose says he died in great poverty in August 1637, in a house near the Abbey, in spite of gifts from royalty. He had been poor for a long time. The page does not treat the poverty as a legend. It treats the size of the grave as a pair of stories.

One story says that he begged "eighteen inches of square ground in Westminster Abbey" from King Charles I. Another says that the Dean of Westminster railed at him about being buried in Poets' Corner, and that Jonson replied: "I am too poor for that and no one will lay out funeral charges upon me. No, sir, six feet long by two feet wide is too much for me: two feet by two feet will do for all I want." The Dean is said to have answered, "You shall have it." The Abbey presents both as stories. Neither is offered as a document in Jonson's hand. What the page adds, as a reason the first story fits the building, is that the nave floor of that period included several lines of stones measuring eighteen inches square, the rest of the floor being a lozenge pattern, "to which Jonson was obviously referring."

So he was buried standing on his feet, in the northern aisle of the nave, and not in Poets' Corner. A body read as sitting, in a Viking Age chamber at Birka, is a different grave and a different century: Bj 581. Jonson's case is narrower. The Abbey says the posture was upright, and that a later opening of the ground confirmed it.

The stone, and the monument that is not the grave

The inscription cut for him was "O Rare Ben Johnson." The Abbey notes the spelling. Jonson himself used Jonson. The stone uses Johnson. The page says the cutting was paid for by Jack Young, who was walking by as the grave was covered and gave the mason eighteen pence to inscribe it. The same words have also been ascribed to Sir William D'Avenant, Jonson's successor as poet laureate, whose own gravestone in the Abbey begins "O Rare..." The page reports both attributions. It does not decide between them.

The original stone was moved in the nineteenth century, when the whole nave floor was re-laid and many larger gravestones were taken away. It was set at the base of the wall opposite the grave, to preserve it. The grave itself is now a small grey lozenge, just to the east of the brass to John Hunter. The inscription on that lozenge repeats the old wording, Johnson included.

A monument is easy to confuse with the grave, and the Abbey keeps them apart. A monument was put up in about 1723 by the Earl of Oxford, in the eastern aisle of Poets' Corner. It has a portrait medallion and the same inscription, again spelled Johnson. Three masks sit at the base, linked by a ribbon through the eyes. A golden lamp is at the top, the flame broken off. The page says it was designed and signed by James Gibbs and attributed to the sculptor J. M. Rysbrack. It also says Jonson was to have had a monument by subscription soon after his death, and that the English Civil War intervened. The monument is a memorial. The body, on the Abbey's account, is in the nave.

What the clerk of works saw

In 1849 a burial nearby disturbed the place. The clerk of works saw the two leg bones of Jonson fixed upright in the sand. The skull came rolling down from a position above the leg bones into the newly made grave. Some red hair was still attached to it. The bones were seen again when Hunter's grave was dug. That is the Abbey's sentence, and it is the observation. An upright burial that nobody opened again would be only a story about a dean. This one was opened, and the legs were still vertical.

The London Walks episode quotes a line, from an article the host says he found, that "the skull of Ben Jonson was freely handed about" when Hunter was buried beside him. The podcast does not say which article, and it then invents a scene with Shakespeare holding the skull. That scene is a joke in the recording, not a record. The phrase about the skull being handed about is not in the Abbey's account of 1849. The Abbey says the skull rolled down, that red hair was on it, and that it was seen again at Hunter's grave. Those are the details used here.

He asked, in the story the Abbey tells, for two feet by two feet. He was buried on his feet. In 1849 the legs were still standing in the sand.

The Death Glossary distinguishes a grave from a monument erected where the body is not. Jonson's case is that distinction in one church. The lozenge in the nave is the grave. The bust in Poets' Corner is the monument. Only one of them had a man in it, and he was upright.

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