It was 170 years ago this summer, on July 20, 1837, that the first Mormon missionaries to Great Britain, seven of them in total, arrived at Liverpool Docks.

The evangelical campaign on which they and those who followed them embarked led over the next few years to several thousands of British converts making the journey the other way to take up new lives in Nauvoo, Illinois, and later in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Among the wave of missionaries who came here in the years immediately following the arrival of those pioneers was one "Lorenzo de Barnes", who ended up in Idle - not only to carry on his work for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but also to fill a space in the graveyard of the village's Holy Trinity Church.

Barnes and his fellow missionaries soon built up an enthusiastic following in Idle and opened a place of worship called Mount Zion Chapel. Alas for Barnes, though, he contracted typhoid fever and died on a date about which there is some dispute.

Local historian Wright Watson, in his respected book Idlethorp, says it was December 20, 1840. However, the year was 1842 according to the researches of John C Jackson for a special feature he wrote for Bradford & Calderdale Chamber of Commerce Journal in October, 1986. And what's more he wasn't called Lorenzo de Barnes, but Lorenzo D Barnes.

According to Wright Watson, an upright tablet in the churchyard is inscribed: "In memory of Lorenzo de Barnes, who died 20th November, 1840. He was a native of the United States, an Elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints and a member of the High Priests' Quorum in Zion's Camp in the year 1834. He was one of the first Gospel Messengers from Nauvoo who has found a grave in a foreign land."

And it continues: "Sleep on, Lorenzo, and ere long from this The conquered grave shall yield its captive prey.

Then with thy Quorom shall thou reign in bliss, A king and priest to an eternal day."

Mr Jackson says the official record (bearing the 1842 date) also reveals that Barnes was 30 and a farmer by profession. And his full name was given as Lorenzo Dow Barnes.

Wright Watson could be forgiven for an error in the date because he wouldn't have been able to see the inscription back in the 1950s when he wrote his book. It was facing the wall.

According to Mr Jackson, the body of Lorenzo Barnes was exhumed in the summer of 1852 and his remains were sent off to Liverpool. There, along with the remains of another Mormon missionary, they were sealed separately in zinc caskets before being encased in oak boxes labelled "Machinery".

From Liverpool they were shipped to New Orleans then up the Mississippi River to St Louis. After a further journey on the Missouri they were unloaded and taken on a 1,000-mile overland journey to Salt Lake City where they were laid to rest again in new surroundings.

So with no Lorenzo sleeping beneath it, his memorial tablet was available for recycling. Happy to oblige was the church sexton, Joseph Shuttleworth, a cloth weaver. He acquired the stone for his family grave, and his own details were inscribed on the other side of it after he died on October 31, 1877, at the age of 60.

The stone was placed facing the high wall of the parsonage garden, obscuring the view of Lorenzo's details.

And there it has remained ever since, barring a brief period in 1980 when it was released from the wall for a while to be photographed and to have a rubbing made of it for display at the church's 150th anniversary exhibition. The rubbing has since been given to the Mormon archives in Salt Lake City.