Chapter II (3)

After a brief illness, which was not at first regarded as serious, erysipelas supervened, and shortly before midnight, on Monday, the 18th of July, 1881, in the Deanery House, at Westminster, quietly and without suffering, the spirit winged its flight from earth. On the Monday following his body was deposited in the grave in Henry VII. Chapel, Westminster, where, on the 9th of March, 1876, his wife, Lady Augusta Stanley, had been laid to rest.

Dean Stanley's visits to Alderley were frequent. The last time he occupied the pulpit of the old church was on the 5th of May, 1878, when he preached before a crowded congregation in aid of the fund for restoring the church. On a more recent visit, though pressed for time, he stopped by the way at the cottage of a suffering parishioner, offered words of comfort and prayer by his bedside--"the same prayer," as he afterwards remarked, "that he had used by the bedside of his own dear wife." His final visit was in the autumn of 1880, on his return from a short sojourn in the Isle of Man, when he visited the rectory and his mother's and sister's grave, accompanied by his friend, the Bishop of Manchester.