Within Broadwater cemetery lies the grave of Mary Hughes, inscribed with the words 'Heroine of the Nursery Rhyme "Mary had a little Lamb"'. Mary Hughes was born Mary Thomas in 1842 at Ty Issa Farm, Llangollen. Her father was a sheep farmer and Mary attended what was then the British School in the town. According to the legend, she brought her hand-reared lamb Billy to school one day and he apparently caused such mayhem in class the teacher insisted he be put out into the playground. Three sisters were visiting the area at the time, and one of them was inspired to write the poem.
In 1861 Mary married Thomas Hughes, a mining engineer from Cefn Mawr and they went on to have 11 children before Thomas died at 47. Mary lived to be 91 years old and died in the home of her daughter in Ethelred Road, West Tarring, Worthing. Mary Hughes' death was recorded in The Worthing Gazette on Saturday 12 December 1931, with the following opening:
'And Mary is dead. Do not try to explain it to little children for they will not believe you. They will tell you that she has gone away to play among the lambs she loved so well. So Mary is dead, and yet she will never die, her memory will go on for ever, immortal. When she was about six years old her little lamb followed her to school and frolicked until the mistress turned him out. That was why a Miss Buel who was staying at the farm at the time wrote the little verse. Probably even now a little child is murmuring through it or lisping it to daddy for his approval. While children live and play it will not die.'
Lovely as the story is, Mary Thomas of Llangollen was not the heroine of the nursery rhyme. It is not clear why she died believing that she was, she may well, as she described, have fed pet lambs from a teapot. It seems she believed that one of the Misses Buel wrote the poem, and we do know that she was given a copy of the poem by visitors from London. However, the original nursery rhyme was written in America and first published 11-12 years before Mary Thomas of Llangollen was born.
There are competing stories about the origins of the poem, both Sarah Josepha Hale and John Roulstone are credited with authorship, though some stories state that the first verse was written by Roulstone, and the rest by Hale. It has also been suggested that Sarah Josepha Hale was the Miss Buel of the Mary Hughes' story, later marrying Horatio Hale. However, that would not explain the publication in 1830, while Mary Hughes was not born until 1842! The one fact agreed upon is that the story of the little girl whose pet lamb followed her to school is based on a real incident. The Mary of the rhyme was Mary Sawyer and the school was the Redstone Schoolhouse in Sterling, Massachusetts, USA. A statue representing Mary's little lamb stands in the town's centre.
The rhyme also has the distinction of being the first recorded verse, recorded by Thomas Edison on his newly invented phonograph in 1877. In 1927, he re-enacted it; that recording still survives. The original was retrieved by 3D imaging in 2012. Several artists have set the rhyme to music, the earliest, in the 1830s, used repetition of various lines, giving the difference today between the commonly quoted American and English versions of the poem.
Mary had a little lamb,
His fleece was white as snow,
And everywhere that Mary went,
The lamb was sure to go.
He followed her to school one day,
Which was against the rule,
It made the children laugh and play
To see a lamb at school.
And so the teacher turned it out,
But still it lingered near,
And waited patiently about,
Till Mary did appear.
"Why does the lamb love Mary so?"
The eager children cry.
"Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know."
The teacher did reply.
Find the grave of Mary Hughes at the published co-ordinates and note the following:
Mary's date of death written dd/mm/yy = ABCDEF
Julia's date of death = GHJKLM
Now leave the cemetery and find the cache at:
The cache is located at: N 50º (E+C)B.M(K+D+F)(B-C) W0º (D+A)(K+J).(B-K)(M+E)(H+D)