I got married in the month of September on a beautiful late summer’s day, so this month I thought I’d look at some London churches where famous people got married. Royal weddings take place in Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral, but there are other beautiful and interesting churches where lesser mortals have tied the knot.  Believe it or not, two US presidents were married in London: John Quincy Adams at All Hallows by the Tower, and Theodore Roosevelt at St Georges, Hanover Square.

All Hallows – John Quincy Adams

The 6^th president of the United States from 1825 to 1829, John Quincy Adams married London-born Louisa Johnson in July 1797. Louisa’s father had been appointed US Consul General, and Adams (serving as a US diplomat at the time) visited him and his family in 1795 at their house in Cooper’s Row, Tower Hill, where he took a shine to the youngest daughter.  Louisa was the first ‘First Lady’ born outside the US, ‘a distinction that would not be shared until 192 years later by Melania Trump’ (Wiki). All Hallows has another American connection: William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, was baptised at the church. And his father, Admiral William Penn, Commissioner of the Navy Office, actually saved All Hallows from the Great Fire in 1666 by ordering several buildings nearby to be blown up with gunpowder, thus creating a fire break. With a history stretching back to AD675, All Hallows is one of the most interesting City churches, well worth a visit.

John Quincy Adams                                                        Louisa Johnson

By John Singleton Copley – Derived from Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=58348536

By Gilbert Stuart – The White House Historical Association, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9406679

St George’s, Hanover Square – Theodore Roosevelt

Often referred to as Teddy, Theodore Roosevelt, soon to be the 26^th President of the US, married fellow-American, Edith Carow in December 1886. He became President in 1901, having previously been Vice-president. His first marriage to Alice had tragically ended with her death days after giving birth to their first child in 1884, and although he was still grieving, he married childhood friend Edith two and a half years later. Roosevelt’s two sisters were surprised and initially against the marriage, but it proved to be a happy relationship and the couple went on to have five children and also raised Roosevelt’s daughter from his first marriage. St George’s is less than half a mile from Grosvenor Square, site of the American Embassy until 2017, and many US servicemen worshipped here during the Second World War. Roosevelt’s wedding inspired other Americans to be married at St George’s and it is also the setting for several fictional weddings: in the musical My Fair Lady, the church in the song Get me to the Church on Time, is St George’s!  The church also features in the film The Lady Vanishes and in the Sherlock Holmes story The Adventures of the Noble Bachelor, and has been a popular venue for society weddings since the 17^th century.

Theodore Roosevelt                                                                        Official portrait of Edith Carow

Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=104163429

By Théobald Chartran – http://www.whitehouseresearch.org/assetbank-whha/action/viewHome, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20180330

St Luke’s Chelsea – Charles Dickens

I featured the churchyard of St Luke’s last month, now let’s look inside the church where one of London’s famous authors was married. Charles Dickens and Catherine Hogarth were married here on 2^nd April 1836, two days after the publication of Pickwick Papers, Dickens’ first full length novel. The marriage certificate (on display in the crypt of the church) shows that Catherine was underage, married by special licence with the consent of her ‘natural and lawful father’, George Hogarth. The couple had been engaged for less than a year and had not intended to marry quite so soon, but the success of the publication of his first novel and its promised financial rewards, caused Charles to aspire to the status of ‘respectable married man’, very important in Victorian times. I picked up the church’s Summer Newsletter which contained photos of the couples married this Summer, and I wondered if any of them thought about the marriage that had taken place there 185 years earlier! St Luke’s is an imposing building inside and out; there’s a majestic high vaulted ceiling and a huge stained-glass window, more reminiscent of a cathedral. A relatively new church, being built in 1824 not long before the Dickens’ marriage.

St Margaret’s Westminster – Samuel Pepys and Others

I must have walked past St Margaret’s so many times and simply not registered it! Known as ‘The Church on Parliament Square’ it’s absolutely dwarfed by Westminster Abbey. Sadly, the church isn’t yet open following Covid 19 closures, so I couldn’t see inside. Like its larger neighbour, St Margaret’s was founded in the 12^th Century by Benedictine Monks; this is the third church on the site. In 1614 St Margaret’s became the Parish Church of Westminster when the Puritans chose to hold their Parliamentary Services there, preferring the simpler style of both the building and the worship to that of the Abbey. To this day the church is also known as ‘The Parish Church of the House of Commons’; Members of Parliament and Officers of the Houses of Lords and Commons can choose to be married here. Samuel Pepys married Elisabeth de St Michel here in December 1655; she was only 15 years old. They had a somewhat turbulent married life, Pepys had several affairs which he made no secret of, but he claimed he loved his wife first and foremost! Elisabeth died aged 29 of typhoid fever and Pepys never remarried.

Also married here, among others:  Poet John Milton and Katherine Woodcock in November 1656; Winston Churchill and Clementine Hozier in September 1908; Lord Louis Mountbatten and Edwina Ashley in July 1922; Prime Minister Harold MacMillan and Lady Dorothy Cavendish in April 1920.

wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Samuel_Pepys.jpg

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elizabeth Pepys.jpg

wikipedia.org/wiki/Clementine_Churchill#/media/File:Winston_Churchill_(1874-1965)_with_fiancée_Clementine_Hozier_(1885-1977)_shortly_before_their_marriage_in_1908.jpg

Credits: Wikipedia and Wikipedia Commons for the pictures; Information boards at All Hallows; Newsletter of St Luke’s