The earliest known example is a 4 November 1801 House of Commons speech by a Mr. Windham warning Britain against giving too much power to France during the preliminaries to peace following the revolutionary wars: "Thus have we done a thing altogether unknown in the history of this country; a thing which would have scared all former politicians; a thing, which, if our old Whig politicians were now to hear, they would turn in their graves. '' One of the earliest uses is found in William Thackeray 's 1849 work The History of Pendennis, where Mrs. Wapshot, upset by a man 's advances on the widow of Mr. Pendennis whom the widow had "never liked, '' says it 's "enough to make poor Mr. Pendennis turn in his grave. '' Another early use of the phrase is in historian James Bryce 's 1888 work The American Commonwealth in which he said: "Jefferson might turn in his grave if he knew. '' It has also been said that circa 1906, when George Bernard Shaw was invited to Henry Irving 's funeral, he said "If I were at Westminster, Henry Irving would turn in his grave, just as Shakespeare would turn in his grave were Henry Irving at Stratford, '' implying that Irving 's productions of Shakespeare would have made the actor as offensive to Shakespeare as Shaw had made himself offensive to Irving with the numerous critical reviews he had written of Irving 's work. In 1902, the work Current Literature stated that "William Morris might well turn in his grave if he could see the uses to which his fine dreams of beautiful books have been put. '' Where the sorry state of people 's spelling / punctuation / literary skills come under criticism, the act is generally said to make "Shakespeare turn in his grave, '' as he is associated with high literary standards. One example of this is when a national newspaper opined that writing the word "cough '' with an "F '' would cause such a thing to occur.
where does the phrase turning in your grave come from
a 4 November 1801 House of Commons speech by a Mr. Windham warning Britain against giving too much power to France during the preliminaries to peace following the revolutionary wars