Richard Taylor Esq

How common is it to put ‘Esq’ after someone’s name on their gravestone? I can’t remember coming across it before, but it can’t be unheard of elsewhere. I’ve walked passed this grave often (it is on the path along the south side of St Nicolas’, Great Coates) but it was only last week that I noticed the ‘Esq’, and it was only then that I made the link between the grave and the Richard Taylor commemorated on a memorial tablet in the church (about which I posted a while ago). The fact that they bothered putting this honorific on his gravestone is further evidence that, in the absence of any resident gentry, this farmer was regarded as a leading citizen in the village.