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People of St Marylebone

Famous People Associated with the Parish Church

Many famous faces have passed through the doors of St Marylebone Parish Church. Scroll through this page to find out about some of the famous faces associated with St Marylebone!

Charles Wesley

Charles Wesley was an English leader of the Methodist movement, and he's chiefly remembered for the many hymns he wrote.

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Lord Byron

The poet Lord Byron was christened in our parish church in 1788. The Byrons, who were of Norman stock, lived at that time in Holles Street, Cavendish Square. He was devoted to Greek independence and it was at Missolonghi in Greece at the early age of thirty-six that he died.

Francis Bacon

Although accurate parish records do not go back far enough to prove the fact, there is good authority which tells that Francis Bacon, the greatest Englishman of his time, was married in the parish church of St Mary-by-the-Bourne on 11 May 1606.

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Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning

On September 12, 1846, the poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning were secretly married at Marylebone Parish Church. They did not tell Elizabeth’s father, and she continued to live at the family home for a week after the wedding. Elizabeth and Robert then moved to Italy together. We have a room dedicated to the Brownings and are regularly involved with the Browning Society.

Lord Nelson

Lord Nelson’s association with St Marylebone is perhaps chiefly to be found in the fact that his daughter Horatia was christened in the parish church on 3 May 1803, but apart from that Lord Nelson attended services there on a number of occasions and the old Parish Church was said to have a pew known as Nelson’s pew. Horatia Nelson married the Rev Philip Ward in 1822, who later became Vicar of Tenterden in Kent.

William Hogarth

The interior of the parish church was accurately portrayed by the artist Hogarth (1697--1764) in the marriage scene from his famous series "The Rake's Progress" (1735).

The original of the pew panel depicted in that picture can be seen at the back of the parish church in the north west corner. The painting can be found at Sir John Soane's Museum.

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens lived close to the parish church for many years, at 1 Devonshire Terrace. It was here that he wrote: The Old Curiosity Shop, Barnaby Rudge, American Notes, Martin Chuzzlewit, The Christmas Carol, The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, Dombey & Son and David Copperfield. Marylebone was particularly influential to Dombey and Son.

Judy Garland

Judy Garland, born Frances Ethel Gumm (10th June 1922 – 22nd June 1969) was an American singer, actress, and vaudevillian. Judy Garland married her fifth and final husband, musician Mickey Deans, at Chelsea Register Office, London, on March 15, 1969, her divorce from Mark Herron having been finalized on February 11. A service of blessing was held at St Marylebone Parish Church later the same day.

Leopold Anthony Stokowski

Leopold Anthony Stokowski (18 April 1882 – 13 September 1977) was a British conductor and one of the leading conductors of the early and mid-20th Century. He was born in the parish of St Marylebone on 18 April 1882, at 13 Upper Marylebone Street. Stokowski studied at the Royal College of Music, where he first enrolled in 1896 at the age of thirteen, making him one of the youngest students to do so.

Benjamin West

Benjamin West (1738-1820) was an Anglo-American painter of historical, religious, and mythological subjects. He was the second president of the Royal Academy in London, serving 1792 to 1805 and 1806 to 1820. Shortly before his death, West painted two works that constituted the major altar decorations of St. Marylebone Parish Church. The larger painting was The Angels Announcing to the Shepherds the Birth of Our Saviour (1816-1817).

Henri Mouhot

Henri Mouhot (1826-1861) was a French naturalist and explorer born into a Protestant family on 25 May 1826 in Franche-Comté, who is renowned for his popularisation of Angkor, Cambodia. He married Ann Park, a descendant (probably a granddaughter) of explorer Mungo Park, at St Marylebone in 1854 or 1855, before settling in 1856 in the island of Jersey.

Sir George Staunton, 2nd Baronet

Sir George Staunton, 2nd Baronet (26 May 1781 – 10 August 1859) lived at 17, Devonshire Street, Marylebone, and was an English traveller and Orientalist. He was a member of the East India Committee, and in 1823, in conjunction with Henry Thomas Colebrooke founded the Royal Asiatic Society. Between 1818 and 1852 he was MP for several English constituencies, finally for Portsmouth.

Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles

Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (6 July 1781 – 5 July 1826) was a British statesman, best known for his founding of the city of Singapore (now the city-state of the Republic of Singapore) and the Zoological Society of London. He was also heavily involved in the conquest of the Indonesian island of Java from Dutch and French military forces during the Napoleonic Wars and contributed to the expansion of the British Empire.

Thomas Evelyn Scott-Ellis, 8th Baron Howard de Walden

Thomas Evelyn Scott-Ellis, 8th Baron Howard de Walden, 4th Baron Seaford (9 May 1880 – 5 November 1946) was an English peer, landowner, writer and patron of the arts. He was also a powerboat racer who competed for Great Britain in the 1908 Summer Olympics. Lord Howard de Walden and Miss Margherita Van Raalte were quietly married in London in St Marylebone Parish Church in March 1912.

Emma, Lady Hamilton

Emma, Lady Hamilton (26 April 1765; baptised 12 May 1765 – 15 January 1815), model and actress, is best remembered as the mistress of Lord Nelson and as the muse of George Romney. Married Sir William Hamilton at St Marylebone Parish Church on 6 September 1791.

William Wilkie Collins

Collins was an English novelist, playwright, and author of short stories. His best-known works are The Woman in White, The Moonstone, Armadale, and No Name. Collins was born in New Cavendish Street, Marylebone and was baptised by the Reverend R H Chapman at the parish church on 18 February 1824.

The Rt Hon. John Shore, PC, 1st Baron Teignmouth

Shore was a British official of the East India Company who served as Governor-General of India from 1793 to 1797. In 1798, he was created Baron Teignmouth in the Peerage of Ireland. Shore was also the first president of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Buried in St Marylebone Parish Church (1834) in Vault 59, where his widow, Charlotte, was also interred some five months later. Both interments were removed to Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey in 1983.

The Revd Doctor John Vardill

John Vardill was born in New York City, the son of a ship's captain. American Loyalist educator, pamphleteer, clergyman, playwright, poet, and spy. First and Last Regius Professor of Divinity at King's College, New York, later Columbia University. He died at St Marylebone, London on 16th January 1811, buried in St Marylebone.

Frances Julia "Snow" Wedgwood

Frances Julia "Snow" Wedgwood (9 July 1833 – 26 November 1913) was an English feminist novelist, biographer, historian and literary critic. In her later years she donated extensively for the construction and extension of Church of England churches. Julia’s watercolour of St Marylebone Parish Church from Regent’s Park, 1889 now in The Wedgwood Museum, Barlaston.

William Tallemach

William Tallemach (1782 – 1816) was a talented sculptor. He exhibited at the Academy and at the British Institution, 1814 - 1816, showing various small models in wax, to be cast in bronze. He also won a prestigious commission from the Committee of Taste, for a monument in St Paul’s Cathedral to General Gore and General Skerett. Tallemach died on 18 November 1816 at his house in Charlotte Street, St Pancras, and was buried at St Marylebone.

William Henry Cavendish Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland

William Henry Cavendish Cavendish-Bentinck (1738-1809) was a British Whig and Tory statesman, Chancellor of the University of Oxford, Prime Minister of Great Britain, serving in 1783 and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1807 to 1809. The 24 years between his two terms as Prime Minister is the longest gap between terms of office of any Prime Minister. He died on 30 October 1809 and was buried in St Marylebone Parish Church.

Richard Cosway

Richard Cosway, RA (5 November 1742 – 4 July 1821) was a leading English portrait painter of the Regency era, noted for his miniatures. He was a contemporary of John Smart, George Engleheart, William Wood, and Richard Crosse. He died in London in 1821 and was buried at St Marylebone Parish Church.

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