Christopher Steigerr

In the east cloister of Westminster Abbey is a marble wall tablet to Christopher Steigerr of Berne in Switzerland. He was buried on 28th December 1772 and his grave adjoins that of Aphra Behn on the north but is now illegible. The original tablet was renewed by the family in 1866 when a coat of arms seems to have disappeared. The Latin inscription can be translated:

Sacred to the memory of Christopher Steigerr, noble native of Berne, Gentleman Commoner of University College, Oxford: a young man of the greatest promise, especially dear, both to the people of Britain and to his own countrymen, for the refinement of his intellect and the evident sweetness of his character. His father, a member of the Supreme Council of Berne and Prefect of Thun, in his anxiety, hastened from Switzerland to London to the side of his beloved son, who was suffering from a lingering sickness, and performed that duty most grievous to a father's love, and finally with this monument commends to everlasting remembrance the merits of this excellent young man and his own grief. He died 23 Dec, year of Our Lord 1772 in his 20th year. His family, still living in Switzerland, restored this monument which had become dilapidated with age, in the year of Our Lord 1866.

It is not clear why the burial took place at the Abbey unless the young Christopher was resident in Westminster at the time of his death.

Further reading

A will of Christopher Steiger of Berne 1789 is in The National Archives, Kew, London.