Maria Rossetti. A name in the shadows of her famous siblings, Dante and Christina, and yet pivotal in their lives and influential in their achievements. An author herself and later a nun, she was her sister’s inspiration for ‘Goblin Market’ [a narrative poem by Christina Rossetti.] All the Rossettis are buried together at Highgate Cemetery except two. Dante, we all know his story… and Maria. Having been consecrated as a nun in around 1870, she was buried in a convent plot at Brompton Cemetery aged only 49. I looked her up on their system; I found nothing. I wrote to Brompton asking about her. They made a quick search on their database and again nothing. They wrote back saying Maria Rossetti is not at Brompton Cemetery.  

Not satisfied by this answer and completely obsessed by this stage that there was a missing Rossetti, I knew I had to find her. She had slipped into the margins of history, and even if she were at Brompton she was surely overlooked. No one must have gone to visit her in decades... a century… possibly even more. I started searching myself. I found her death certificate online where it clearly stated she was buried at Brompton Cemetery on 29 November 1876. She had died adjacent to All Saints Church, Margaret Street in Fitzrovia from ovarian cancer. With no indication where she was in Brompton, I knew I had to go to All Saints church and ask questions. I was hoping someone would tell me there was a little graveyard at the back of the church and she was there. That would have nicely ended my journey. I got no such response. The church is spectacular and I was greeted by a very friendly Father. I explained what I was doing and he assumed she was related to me. I was almost embarrassed to say she was not as that did not explain why I was so desperate to find a 200 year-old nun (born 1827)!
 
He showed me around the church and the convent opposite the church where she had lived and died and said he would call the archivist to help do some research about her. He also warned me that he could not use email. So although this trip was not useful in finding her, it definitely took me closer to her world and her life, a glimpse into what she had known and seen. I emailed my findings to the lovely man at Brompton Cemetery (the one who had told me she was not there) including her plot number, which I found online and evidence from William Rossetti that he had attended his ‘loving sister’s funeral at Brompton Cemetery’. At this stage, the man at Brompton realised I was really not going to disappear until I stood over her grave. And so he did another search on his database but this time spelt her name wrong, and unbelievably it popped up. Hours of online research into the night finding evidence of Maria being at Brompton cemetery was pointless. The info was all there all the time. I did, however, realise that I had not actually wasted my time. I had
delved into her life so much that I actually felt I knew her. I am sure I saw every picture taken of her and read every poem written by her and imagined what kind of a person could inspire someone to dedicate ‘Goblin Market’ to. I had certainly earned the respect of the man at Brompton and the gardeners, the latter also assuming that we were related. I secretly liked that idea.

The lovely man at Brompton then searched who was also buried with her and sent me details of the other nine nuns she shared her grave with. She was the third nun to be interred in that grave in 1876; the 10th nun was buried in 1900. So I marched off again to Brompton Cemetery, each time my admiration of the place increased, like a person you gradually become fond of. This time we were armed with the plot number. After finding the general area we started the detailed search, counting steps, measuring distances and referencing the named graves next to where we thought she should be. We finally narrowed it down to an area big enough for two graves. There was one clearly visible grave with a headstone that was completely blank. The passage of time has made sure of that. Just behind this grave there was a patch that looked like it had not seen the light of day in centuries, grass, weeds and you name it were claiming it as theirs. The gardeners were amazing at cleaning it up and within half an hour, lo and behold, we found a grave there. Completely unmarked, no headstone or cross, although it did look like something had been there at some point. As much as I stared and looked and dug with my fingers around the corners of both graves, there was no indication which of the two unmarked graves she was in (as seen in pictures attached). I placed flowers on both. This was the closest anyone would get to finding Maria Rossetti.