The church was founded in the twelfth century by Benedictine monks, so that local people who lived in the area around the Abbey[3] could worship separately at their own simpler parish church, and historically it was within the hundred of Ossulstone in the county of Middlesex.[4] In 1914, in a preface to Memorials of St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, a former Rector of St Margaret's, Hensley Henson, reported a mediaeval tradition that the church was as old as Westminster Abbey, owing its origins to the same royal saint, and that "The two churches, conventual and parochial, have stood side by side for more than eight centuries – not, of course, the existing fabrics, but older churches of which the existing fabrics are successors on the same site."[5]
St Margaret's was rebuilt from 1486 to 1523, at the instigation of King Henry VII, and the new church, which largely still stands today, was consecrated on 9 April 1523. It has been called "the last church in London decorated in the Catholic tradition before the Reformation", and on each side of a large rood there stood richly painted statues of St Mary and St John, while the building had several internal chapels. In the 1540s, the new church came near to demolition, when Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, planned to take it down to provide good-quality materials for Somerset House, his own new palace in the Strand. He was only kept from carrying out his plan by the resistance of armed parishioners.[6]
In 1614, St Margaret's became the parish church of the Palace of Westminster, when the Puritans of the seventeenth century, unhappy with the highly liturgical Abbey, chose to hold their Parliamentary services in a church they found more suitable:[7] a practice that has continued since that time. An additional detached burial ground was added in 1625 at what is now Christchurch Gardens.
Between 1734 and 1738, the north-west tower was rebuilt to designs by John James; at the same time, the whole structure was encased in Portland stone. Both the eastern and the western porch were added later, with J. L. Pearson as architect. In 1878, the church's interior was greatly restored and altered to its current appearance by Sir George Gilbert Scott, although many Tudor features were retained.[8]
In 1863, during preliminary explorations preparing for this restoration, Scott found several doors overlaid with what was believed to be human skin. After doctors had examined this skin, Victorian historians theorized that the skin might have been that of William the Sacrist, who organized a gang that, in 1303, robbed the King of the equivalent of, in modern currency, $100 million (see Richard of Pudlicott). It was a complex scheme, involving several gang members disguised as monks planting bushes on the palace. After the stealthy burglary 6 months later, the loot was concealed in these bushes. The historians believed that William the Sacrist was flayed alive as punishment and his skin was used to make these royal doors, perhaps situated initially at nearby Westminster Palace.[9]
Subsequent study revealed the skins were bovine in origin, not human.
By the 1970s, the number of people living nearby was in the hundreds. Ecclesiastical responsibility for the parish was reallocated to neighbouring parishes by the Westminster Abbey and Saint Margaret Westminster Act 1972, and the church was brought under the authority of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey.[1]
Other windows commemorate William Caxton, England's first printer, who was buried at the church in 1491, Sir Walter Raleigh, executed in Old Palace Yard[14] and then also buried in the church in 1618, the poet John Milton, a parishioner of the church, and Admiral Robert Blake.
Weddings
As well as marrying its own parishioners, the church has long been a popular venue for society weddings, as Members of Parliament, peers, and officers of the House of Lords and House of Commons can choose to be married in it. Notable weddings include:
5 July 1631: Edmund Waller and Anne Banks, who was an heiress and a ward of the Court of Aldermen, were married at the church in defiance of orders of the Court and the Privy Council of England. Waller had previously carried the bride off and been forced to return her. On a complaint being made to the Star Chamber, Waller was pardoned by King Charles I.[15]
Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Cleveland, eldest son of Barbara Villiers, was christened in the church on 16 June 1662, when the father's name was given as her husband, Lord Castlemaine, instead of as the King, who later acknowledged the child as his. In October 1850 The Gentleman's Magazine reported this entry and claimed it as "an untruth" and "a new fact in the secret history of Charles II".[24]
Olaudah Equiano, a slave who bought his freedom, becoming a key abolitionist, was christened as Gustavus on 9 February 1759, when he was described in the parish register as "Gustavus Vassa a Black born in Carolina 12 years old".[26]
On Easter day 1555 in the reign of Mary I a Protestant ex-Benedictine monk, William Flower inflicted wounds to the administerer of the sacrament. He repented for the injuries but would not repent his motive which was rejection of the doctrine of transubstantiation. He was thus sentenced for heresy and a week later severed of his hand and burned at the stake outside the church.
During the First World War, Edward Lyttelton, headmaster of Eton, gave a sermon in the church on the theme of "loving your enemies", promoting the view that any post-war treaty with Germany should be a just one and not vindictive. He had to leave the church after the service by a back door, while a number of demonstrators sang Rule Britannia! in protest at his attitude.[32]
Choirs
Until 2019, the treble choristers for St Margaret's were supplied by Westminster Under School. In September 2023, a new choir for girls aged 11 to 17 was formed, to sing for regular liturgical services alongside the professional singers of the St Margaret's Consort.
An organ was installed in 1806 by John Avery. The current organ is largely built by J. W. Walker & Sons Ltd. A specification of the organ can be found on the National Pipe Organ Register.[33]
Under the Ecclesiastical Commissioners Act 1840, this rectory was annexed to the canonry of Westminster Abbey then held by Henry Hart Milman, such that he and his successors as Canon would be Rector ex officio.[38] This arrangement continued until 1978. The Rector was often (and continuously from 1972 to 2010) also the Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons.[39]
^From "Memorials of St. Margaret's church, Westminister, comprising the parish registers, 1539-1660, and other churchwardens' accounts, 1460-1603", reported in Notes and Queries (1914), p. 518
^John Richardson, The Annals of London: a Year-by-year Record of a Thousand Years of History (University of California Press, 2000), p. 81
^Wright, A.; Smith, P. (1868). Parliament Past and Present. London: Hutchinson & Co.
^Scott, George Gilbert (1995) [1879]. Stamp, Gavin (ed.). Personal and Professional Recollections. [London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington] Stamford: Paul Watkins Publishing. ISBN1-871615-26-7.
^Taylor, D. J. (2007). Bright Young Things: the lost generation of London's Jazz Age. London: Chatto & Windus. ISBN978-0-7011-7754-6. (American ed.: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, New York, 2009)
^Robert Edmond Chester Waters, Genealogical memoirs of the extinct family of Chester of Chicheley (1878), p. 105
^Maurice Petherick, Restoration Rogues (1951), p. 327
^J. L. Chester, The Marriage, Baptismal, and Burial Registers of the Collegiate Church or Abbey of St. Peter, Westminster, Volume 10 (Harleian Society, 1876), p. 197
^"The Deanery of Westminster". The Times. No. 36897. London. 13 October 1902. p. 9.
^"Bishop Hensley Henson – Master of Dialectic", obituary in The Times, 29 September 1947, p. 27
^"William and Mary Carnegie". Westminster Abbey. Retrieved 8 August 2014. William Hartley Carnegie Canon of Westminster and Rector of St Margaret's 1913–1936. Sub Dean 1919–1936. Born 27 February 1859. Died 18 October 1936. ...
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