Altar Cross

The altar cross was given to the church in the 1880s, in memory of the wife of the second secretary of the British legation, who had died soon after childbirth. The inscription reads:

Presented
to the
English and American Church
at Berne
in loving memory of
ROSE MATILDA
the dearly loved wife of Francis H. Carew Esq.
of H.B.M. Diplomatic Service
who died at Berne, November 3rd. 1881.
aged 29
"The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin."

Francis Henry Carew was second secretary at the British legation. He had married Rose Matilda Harris at St George's, Hanover Square, on 19 June 1878. He had been born in Bickleigh, near Tiverton in Devon, in 1852, the son of the rector of Bickleigh, and she in the same year at Colehill, near Wimborne Minster in Dorset, the daughter of Admiral Sir Edward Harris KB. Rose had given birth to a daughter on 18 October. Francis Carew was to die himself at the British Embassy in Paris at the age of 35, and was buried at Bickleigh on 16 March 1888. (The daughter, Dorothy Beatrix Rose Carew married Captain Humphrey St Leger Stucley at St George's, Hanover Square in 1908.)