St Botolph's Churchyard

St Botolph's Churchyard. . The churchyard of St Botolph's continued to be used for burials after the church itself was badly damaged in 1648 during the English Civil War. Burials gradually ceased after the opening of Colchester Cemetery in Mersea Road in 1856. Amongst those buried here are a Waterloo veteran, Colchester's first hospital doctor and a railway builder., Jesse Jones (1788-1868) joined the Army at the age of 18, serving in the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards, now known as the Grenadier Guards. He fought in the Peninsular War of 1807-14 in which an allied army under the command of Sir Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington) drove the French out of Spain. Jones was present at the Battle of Barrosa in 1811 where he fought with great bravery and was promoted to Sergeant. In 1815, during the Battle of Waterloo, Jones was wounded by a musket ball which passed right through the fleshy part of his chest. Later, when living in Colchester, he would illustrate this story with the actual lead ball. After his regular military service, Jones became the Adjutant, or administrative officer, in the East Essex Militia with the rank of Captain., Roger Nunn (1783-1844) was the first doctor to work at the Essex and Colchester Hospital, later the Essex County Hospital, when it opened on Lexden Road in 1820. At this date, the hospital had an operating theatre and beds for more than 80 patients spread across eight wards. Nunn was also Mayor of Colchester in 1834 and again in 1842/3., William Warwick Hawkins (1816-68) was a leading figure in the attempt to develop Colchester as a major port on the East Coast. He built two railways to improve the links to the port at the Hythe. In 1849 the Stour Valley Railway opened, linking Colchester to Sudbury, followed in 1867 by the Tendring Hundred Railway which connected Colchester to Clacton. Hawkins was MP for Colchester from 1852-7.