Westminster Abbey politicians, doctors and scientists such as Isaac Newton, buried on 4 April 1727, Charles Darwin, buried on 26 April 1882, and Stephen Hawking, buried on 15 June 2018. Another was William Wilberforce who led the movement to abolish slavery in the United Kingdom and the Plantations, buried on 3 August 1833. Wilberforce was buried in the north transept, close to his friend, the former Prime Minister, William Pitt. During the early 20th century it became increasingly common to bury cremated remains rather than coffins in the abbey. In 1905 the actor Sir Henry Irving was cremated and his ashes buried
Burials and memorials in Westminster Abbey their Memorial Service in the Abbey, but were buried elsewhere: Sixteen Great War poets are commemorated on a slate stone unveiled 11 November 1985, in the South Transept (Poets' Corner): Above the Great West Door, ten 20th-century Christian martyrs from across the world are depicted in statues; from left to right: King Harold I was originally buried in the Abbey, but his body was exhumed, beheaded, and thrown into a fen in June 1040. The body was later rescued and re-buried in the church of St Clement Danes in Westminster. A number of Cromwellians were also buried in the Abbey