Home / About Us / Heritage / People of St Marylebone / Famous People Associated with the Area

People of St Marylebone

Famous People Associated with the Area

Heritage

Florence Nightingale, OM, RRC, DStJ, (1820 - 1910)

Florence Nightingale pioneered nursing and social care during the 19th century. She is known as the founder of modern nursing. On the 15th of March 1850, Nightingale opened The Establishment for Gentlewomen During Temporary Illness at 90 Harley Street, a stone's throw from St Marylebone Parish Church. Nightingale worked at the Establishment between August 1853 and October 1854. She was Superintendent in 1854 when a cholera epidemic hit London. At the end of August 1854, she left the hospital in Harley Street in the hands of her staff and went to nurse the sick and dying poor at the nearby Middlesex Hospital.

Sherlock Holmes

Perhaps the most famous resident of St Marylebone is the detective who resided at 221B Baker Street! The fictional detective was created by author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and remains one of the greatest literary characters in modern history. Holmes has appeared in sixty short stories and four novels since his character was first introduced to the literary world in 1887.

Adam Ant

Adam Ant is an English singer, musician and actor. He was born on 3 November 1954 in Marylebone, London. He gained popularity as the lead singer of new wave group Adam and the Ants and later as a solo artist. He scored 10 UK top ten hits from 1980 to 1983, including three UK No. 1 singles. Some of his biggest hits are Stand and Deliver, Ant music and Kings of the Wild Frontier.

Charles Babbage

Charles Babbage was an English polymath, mathematician, philosopher, inventor, and mechanical engineer. He was born on 26 December 1791, and died on 18 October 1871 in St. Marylebone, London. He invented the Difference Engine and originated the concept of a digital programmable computer, leading him to be considered by some as the ‘father of the computer’.

Lilian Baylis

Lilian Baylis was an English theatrical producer and manager. She was born on 9 May 1874 in St. Marylebone, London, and died on 25 November 1937. She managed the Old Vic and Sadler’s Wells theatres in London and ran an opera company, which evolved into the English National Theatre; and a ballet company, which eventually became the Royal Ballet.

Dorothea Beale

Dorothea Beale was a suffragist, educational reformer and author. She was born on 21 March 1831. She and her two older sisters were amongst the earliest students at the newly opened Queen’s College on Harley Street, London. She then became Principal of Cheltenham Ladies’ College, after which she became the founder of St. Hilda’s College, Oxford.

Simon Bolivar

Simon Bolivar was a Venezuelan military and political leader. He was born on 24 July 1783 in Caracas, Venezuela, and died on 17 December 1930. He led the countries which are known today as Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Panama, Peru and Bolivia to independence from the Spanish Empire. He made many visits to Europe, and during some of his journeys, resided in St. Marylebone, London.

Frances Buss

Frances Buss was a pioneer of girls’ education and the first person to use the title of Headmistress. She was born on 16 August 1827 in London and died on 24 December 1894. During 1848-1849, she attended evening lectures at the newly opened Queen’s College in Harley Street, London. She was taught by F.D Maurice, Charles Kingsley and R.C Trench, gaining certificates in French, German and Geography.

William Cavendish-Bentinck, the 3rd Duke of Portland

William Cavendish-Bentinck, the 3rd Duke of Portland, was a British Whig and then a Tory politician during the late Georgian era. He served as Chancellor of the University of Oxford and twice as the Prime Minister of Great Britain and then of the United Kingdom. He was born on 14 April 1738 in Nottinghamshire and died on 30 October 1809. He was buried in St. Marylebone.

Lily Cole

Lily Cole is a British model, actress and entrepreneur. She pursued a modelling career as a teenager. In 2009, she was named one of the top thirty models of the 2000s by Vogue Paris. Cole quickly gained popularity and attention in the modelling world. At just 16 years old, she was featured on the cover of British Vogue and, in 2004, was named ‘Model of the Year’ at the 2004 British Fashion Awards. Throughout her modelling career, she worked with many well-known brands, including Alexander McQueen, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Jean Paul Gaultier and Moschino. She attended the St. Marylebone CE School which neighbours St Marylebone Parish Church.

In addition to modelling, Cole is an influential advocate for a variety of environmental and humanitarian causes and was recognised for this dedicated by Glasgow Caledonian University, who, in 2013, awarded Cole an honorary degree for contribution to humanitarian and environmental causes.

Emma Cons

Emma Cons was a British social reformer, strongly committed to women's suffrage. She also campaigned for educational opportunities for the working class. In 1880, she opened the Old Vic Theatre and provided affordable theatre tickets for Shakespearean dramas.

Nipper Pat Daly

Nipper Pat Daly was a 20th-century British boxer who fought professionally between 1923 and 1931 and lived and trained in St Marylebone. He made his professional debut at the age of nine or ten and achieved widespread fame in his teens as British boxing's 'Wonderboy.' He retired from professional boxing at the age of seventeen.

Emily Davies

Emily Davies was an English feminist and suffragist, and a pioneering campaigner for women's rights to university access. She is remembered as a co-founder and an early Mistress of Girton College, University of Cambridge, the first university college in England to educate women.

William Davidson

William Davidson was a British African-Caribbean radical executed for his role in the Cato Street Conspiracy against Lord Liverpool's government in 1820. At the age of 14, he travelled to Glasgow to study law, and in Scotland he became involved in the movement for parliamentary reform.

Frederick Denison Maurice

Frederick Denison Maurice was an English Anglican theologian, a prolific author, and one of the founders of Christian socialism. He was regarded as an “exemplary child, responsive to teaching and always dutiful.” and for his higher education in civil law, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge.

Evelyn Mary Dove

Evelyn Mary Dove was a British singer and actress, who early in her career drew comparisons with Josephine Baker. She is recognised as a “trailblazing performer”. In 1939, she made history as the first black singer to feature on BBC Radio, building a solid reputation not only through her work in Britain but also internationally, travelling to France, Germany, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, Hungary, the United States, India and Spain. She undertook her musical education at the Royal Academy of Music, which lies across the road from St Marylebone Parish Church.

Jacqueline du Pré

Jacqueline du Pré was a British cellist. At a young age, she achieved enduring mainstream popularity. Despite her short career, she is regarded as one of the greatest cellists of all time.

T.S Eliot

Thomas Stearns Eliot OM, known as T.S. Eliot, was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic, and editor. Considered one of the 20th century's major poets, he is a central figure in English-language Modernist poetry.

Olaudah Equiano

Olaudah Equiano was a writer and abolitionist from, according to his memoir, the Eboe region of the Kingdom of Benin. Enslaved as a child in Africa, he was taken to the Caribbean and sold as a slave to a Royal Navy officer. He was sold twice more but purchased his freedom in 1766. He was born in 1745 in Essaka and died on 31 March 1797.

Michael Faraday

Michael Faraday FRS was an English scientist who contributed to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include the principles underlying electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis. He was born on 22 September 1791 in London and died on 25 August 1867. He was an apprentice in St. Marylebone.

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was an English physician and suffragist. She was the first woman to qualify in Britain as a physician and surgeon. She was the co-founder of the first hospital staffed by women, the first dean of a British medical school, the first woman in Britain to be elected to a school board and, as mayor of Aldeburgh, the first female mayor in Britain.

Ethel Gordon Fenwick

Ethel Gordon Fenwick was a British nurse who played a major role in the History of Nursing in the United Kingdom. She campaigned to procure a nationally recognised certificate for nursing, to safeguard the title "Nurse", and lobbied Parliament to pass a law to control nursing and limit it to "registered" nurse sonly.

Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music, and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century.

Ada Lovelace

Ada Lovelace was an English mathematician and writer, chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. She was the only child of poet Lord Byron and mathematician Lady Byron.