Thomas Jennings & Helen Shrider

On the wall of the south cloister of Westminster Abbey is a marble tablet to Thomas Jennings or Jenings and his wife Elizabeth. Thomas was a member of the Abbey Choir from 1679-1734. The inscription reads: 

Near this place lyeth the body of Mrs Elizabeth Jenings, the pious discreet and loving wife of Thomas Jenings one of the Gentlemen of His Majesties Chapel Royal and an ancient member of this Church. She departed this life the 12th of July 1720 in the 57th year of her age, very much lamented by her loving and beloved children who have caused this monument to be erected in memory of their dear mother. Also lyeth interr'd the body of the above mentioned Mr Thomas Jenings, who departed this life the 26th of March 1734 in the 74th year of his age

Thomas was in the Chapel Royal choir from 1699-1700. Elizabeth Loton was his first wife.

Their daughter Helen was baptised in the Abbey in 1689 and married, as his second wife, organ maker Christopher Shrider (Schrider) at the Chapel Royal, Whitehall on 6th April 1708. Five of their young children are buried in the cloisters (two called Elizabeth, Ann, Thomas and John) and she was buried with her parents on 27th March 1752. Another son called John was baptised in 1691 and became a clerk at the House of Lords. Son Christopher succeeded to his father's business and died in 1763.

(Helen's husband Christopher (died 1751) built a new organ for the Abbey in 1730. He is buried at St Anne's church, Soho, in London).