Death

Baskerville hand wrote his will in 1773 and it is here we for the first time we hear Baskerville’s voice. In it he explains his feelings about religion and his plans for his funeral. These are his own words

“That my wife in concert with my executors cause my body to be buried in a conical building in my own premises, hear to fore used as a mill which I have lately raised higher and painted and in a vault which I have prepared for it. This doubtless to many may appear a whim perhaps it is so – But is a whim for many years resolved upon as I have a hearty contempt of all superstition the farce of a consecrated ground the Irish barbarism of sure and certain hopes.

I also consider Revelation as it is called exclusive of the scraps of morality casually intermixed with it to be the most imprudent abuse of common sense, which ever was invented to befool Mankind. I expect some shrewd remark will be made on this my declaration by the ignorant and bigoted who cannot distinguish between Religion and Superstition and are taught to believe that
morality (by which I understand all the duties a man owes to god and his fellow creatures) is not sufficient to entitle him to divine favour with professing to believe as they call it certain abused doctrines and mysteries of which they have no more conception than a horse. This morality alone I profess to have been my religion and the rule of my action to which I appeal how far my
profession and practice have been constant.”

Baskerville died and was buried in his conical tower in 1775

In 1789 the house on the hill was sold and then in 1791 during the Birmingham Riots the house was sacked and burnt to the ground. It is worth considering the possibility that the lingering memory of Baskerville’s Anti-clerical reputation and the religious nature of the disturbance, may have lead to the burning of the house. The conical tower remained and Baskerville’s body lay in it for almost a further 50 years. The property ultimately had a new owner and the body was removed to a plumber’s warehouse “where it remained for some time subject to visits from the curious and even to scientific observation of the condition of the body”

The body went on show at a shop owned by a Mr Marston and he eventually applied to the rector of St Philip’s to bury the body there but was turned down due to Baskerville’s Atheism. A bookseller, Mr Knott, heard of this and arranged for the body to be secretly interred in his own vault in Christ’s Church. He said it was his honour to help but the curse of Baskerville struck gain and the church had to be demolished due to the expansion of the city and plans were made to rebury him again in St Philip’s Church next to his wife but again the rector refused due to his Anti-clericalism. He ultimately ended up in Warston Lane Cemetery.

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