[H2485] – Mrs Steere Grave Digger c.1900
[H2038] – Mrs Steere c.1898

Originally shared in 2025 as part of
Stories Seen Through A Glass Plate – Working Lewes

Elizabeth Steere succeeded her late husband as Lewes’ sexton and gravedigger, living in Cemetery Cottage. Elizabeth struck up a friendship with the young ML Scott, who later recalled: ‘Her appearance was not attractive. A rusty black skirt hung like a sack on her powerful but bent body. A red and black flannelette blouse and a rusty black bonnet – often askew – made her toilette. Her pocket was the top of her stocking. Her face was stained with snuff, and her grained old hands were begrimed with earth…[but] under all that gruff exterior was a real love of young things, beautiful things and above all humorous things. I hear her dry chuckle now, as if she was reading this.’

In later life, Mrs Steere weeded cemetery paths, her sight failing. ML Scott was so distressed the old woman could not see, she visited her cottage in the cemetery and read stories to the elderly gravedigger. ‘Perhaps the story most enjoyed was one about a little circus girl, all glittering spangles and muslins.’

ML Scott, ‘Mrs Steere, The Lewes Grave-Digger’

The Sussex County Magazine, vol 7, 1933

This story was displayed on a lightbox as part of Stories Seen Through A Glass Plate: Working Lewes, in the window of Cooper & Son funeral directors on Lewes High Street, which currently has an all-female team.