Sarah Trimmer - Death

Death

How large the debt of gratitude I owe, How was I counsell’d, aided, prais’d and lov’d. Let others tell, (for as the words of truth ‘Tis told where’er Britannia’s name is known) Thy apostolic ministry to youth, Thy faithful service to the Church and Throne. ‘Tis mine, receiv’d within the social hall, The hidden gems of virtue to record; A genius pure from envy’s tainting gall, Meek in reproach, and careless of reward.… For seventy years thy lamp benignly shone, And thousands hail’d it as a guiding star.

— Jane West

Trimmer's husband died in 1792; this affected her quite deeply, as is evidenced in her journal. In 1800, she and some of her daughters were forced to move to another house in Brentford. This was painful for Trimmer, who wrote in her diary:

Alas, a widow, unacquainted with the ways of the world, ignorant of legal matters, can do but little on occasions like these which now occur. After more than thirty years’ residence in a house, in which I have known many comforts, and in a neighbourhood where I have endeavoured to make myself respected, I am likely to be obliged to seek for a new habitation; and there is not one within so short a distance as to enable me to fulfil the wishes of my heart by attending to the schools. Should I find it necessary to change my abode, the schools will, I fear, unavoidably decline. I shall also be removed to a distance, from some of my children, whose society would comfort my declining years.

She died in Brentford on 15 December 1810, and was buried at St Mary's, Ealing. There is a plaque memorializing her at St. George's, Brentford:

To the memory of SARAH relict of James Trimmer, resident in this parish nearly 50 years, during which she adorned the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things, by her practice a constant attendant in God’s House of Prayer. In her own house an example to Christian Matrons, in her neighbourhood ministering to the necessities of all; the destitute, the afflicted and the ignorant, seeking their moral improvement by imparting Christian instruction both in private and also in the Church School raised by her exertions and fostered by her care. By her writings, edifying the members of that branch of Christ’s Holy Church in which she was born and which she loved with an ardent but well tempered zeal. She obtained rest from her labours on the 15th December 1810 in the seventieth year of her age.