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
Westminster Abbey (British Columbia) including Father Eugene Medved, later Prior and Abbot, were sent from Mount Angel Abbey, Oregon, to British Columbia in 1939 to found a priory and to take over the running of the Seminary of Christ the King, which was then located in Ladner, B.C.. The following year, the monks moved their new priory together with the seminary to Burnaby, near Vancouver, B.C., neighbouring New Westminster. It became a conventual (independent) priory in 1948. In 1953 the Holy See raised it to the status of an Abbey. Prior Eugene was elected as the first Abbot of the new abbey. The same