Burials and memorials in Westminster Abbey

Honouring individuals buried in Westminster Abbey has a long tradition. Over 3,300 people are buried or commemorated in the abbey.^[1] For much of the abbey's history, most of the people buried there besides monarchs were people with a connection to the church – either ordinary locals or the monks of the abbey itself, who were generally buried without surviving markers.^[2] Since the 18th century, it has become a prestigious honour for any British person to be buried or commemorated in the abbey, a practice much boosted by the lavish funeral and monument of Sir Isaac Newton, who died in 1727.^[3] By 1900, so many prominent figures were buried in the abbey that the writer William Morris called it a "National Valhalla".^[4]