St. George's Church

St. George's Hanover square, is situated on the east side of George street, near the square, whence it had its additional epithet. This is one of the churches that were found necessary, upon the great increase of public buildings in this part of the town; for the church of St Martin's in the Fields being at too great a distance from the new streets, and too small for the inhabitants, the Commissioners for the fifty new churches gave orders for erecting one in the skirts of the parish, on which this august pile arose, and was consecrated in 1724. This church, considering the extent of the parish, is too small. It has a plain body with an elegant portico: the columns, which are Corinthian, are of a large diameter, and the pediment has its acroteria, but without farther ornament. It has a tower, which, above the clock, is elegantly adorned at the corners with coupled Corinthian columns that are very lofty. These are crowned with their entablature,, which at each corner supports two vases, and over these the tower still rises till it is terminated by a dome crowned with a turret which supports a ball, over which rises the weather-cock.

This church is a rectory; the parish at first consisted of the two out wards of that of St. Martin's in the Fields; but it has now four wards, named Conduit street, Grosvenor street, Dover street, and the out ward. The advowson is settled up9on the Bishop of London and his successors. The profits arising to the Rector, are said to amount to about 600l. per annum. Lieutenant General Stewart gave the ground on which this church was erected, and sometime after bequeathed to this parish the sum of 4000l. towards erecting and endowing a charity school in it.

St. George's Church, Hanover-Square,—about twelve doors on the L. in George-st. from the S. side of the square, towards Piccadilly.

St. George Hanover-Sq., the church of, is situated on the east side of Great George-street and the corner of Maddox-street. It was built by Gibbs, in 1724, as one of the fifty new churches voted by parliament, and was dedicated, in complement to the reigning king, to St. George. It has a plain substantial body, with an elegant portico of the Corinthian order, and a handsome bell tower. The ground upon which this church stands was given by Lieutenant-General William Stewart, who also bequeathed £4,000 towards erecting and endowing a charity school.

The parish was taken from that of St. Martin-in-the-fields, and is a rectory in the patronage of the Bishop of London, is in the county of Middlesex, in the diocese of London and in the archdeaconry of Middlesex. The present rector is the very Rev. Robert Hodgson, D.D., Dean of Carlisle, who was instituted by the Bishop of London in 1803.

George's (St.) Church, George Street, Hanover Square, was designed by John James, architect, begun in 1713, and consecrated by Bishop Gibson, March 23, 1724. Like St. George's, Bloomsbury, it was dedicated to St. George "in compliment to the King," George I. It is of course classic in style. The body of the church is plain; but it has a Corinthian portico of good proportions (70 feet long by 60 feet wide and 40 feet 6 inches high), and a tower with columns of a corresponding order which together form a picturesque group (100 feet high). This was one of the fifty new churches, and contains a good Jesse window, of 16th-century work, brought from Mechlin by the Marquis of Ely, purchased by public subscription, and placed in the church in 1841 with additions by T. Willement, glass painter. The parish was taken out of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. The ground for the church was given by Lieut. General Stewart, who some time after bequeathed £4000 for a parish school. In this church (formerly the most fashionable church for marriages in London, in which the great Duke of Wellington has given away so many brides) some remarkable marriages have been solemnised—the Duchess of Kingston, March 8, 1769, to the Duke of Kingston, her first husband (Mr. Hervey, afterwards Earl of Bristol) being then alive. She is described in the register as a spinster. Her trial for bigamy is among the causes celebres. Sir William Hamilton, September 6, 1791, to the Lady Hamilton, so intimately connected with the story of Lord Nelson. Her name in the register is Emma Harte. Richard Cosway, to Maria Hatfield, 1771; the bride was given away by Charles Townley, Esq., the collector of the Townley Marbles, now in the British Museum. Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, to Lady Augusta Murray, December 5, 1793, afterwards declared by the Prerogative Court to be void under the terms of the Royal Marriage Act. The marriage was by banns, and as it seemed "singular that banns should be published when one of the parties was of the Royal Family" without the clergy making any inquiry or even ascertaining the residence of the "Augustus Frederick" who was to be married, it was decided to summon the rector and curates before the Privy Council. Lord Eldon—then engaged for the Crown—tells the result with much unction:—

The rector first appeared; he said he had the most respectable curates, and he had always most solemnly enjoined them not to marry parties without having first enquired about their residence. The curates were then examined, and they said their's was a most respectable parish clerk, who wore a gown, and they had always most solemnly given a like injunction to him. The clerk was then called, and he declared that no man in the parish had a more excellent, careful wife than he had, and that he daily gave her most solemnly a like injunction. She then made her appearance, and said that she must sometimes be about her own, and not about parish business; but that she had two female servants, as discreet as any in the parish, and she had always given them a like solemn injunction, when anybody brought a paper about publication of banns in her and her husband's absence, to make proper enquiries about the parties' residence. All this put Lord Thurlow out of humour, and he then said to me angrily, "Sir, why have you not prosecuted, under the Act of Parliament, all the parties concerned in this abominable marriage?" To which I answered, "That it was a very difficult business to prosecute—that the Act, it was understood, had been drawn by Lord Mansfield, and Mr. Attorney General Thurlow, and Mr. Solicitor General Wedderburne, and unluckily they had made all parties present at the marriage guilty of felony; and as nobody could prove the marriage except a person who had been present at it, there could be no prosecution, because nobody present could be compelled to be a witness. This put an end to the matter. Afterwards there was a suit in the Commons, and the marriage was there declared null and void.—Lord Chancellor Eldon's Life by Twiss, vol. i. p. 234.

Lola Montes (1849) To a Mr. Heath.

The Muse displays
The future to her votary's gaze:
Prophetic rage my bosom swells;
I taste the cake, I hear the bells!

Gay favours, thick as flakes of snow,
Brighten St. George's portico.
Within I see the chancel's pale,
The orange flowers, the Brussels veil,
The page on which those fingers white,
Still trembling from the awful rite,
For the last time shall faintly trace
The name of Stanhope's noble race.
Lord Macaulay's Valentine.

In the burial-ground on the road to Bayswater, belonging to this parish, and near the west wall, Laurence Sterne, the author of Tristram Shandy and the Sentimental Journey, is buried. He died in Old Bond Street in this parish. [See Bayswater.] It was for this living that Dr. Dodd offered a bribe to Lord Chancellor Bathurst, and was struck off the list of King's Chaplains.¹

Among the descendants of Thomas Plantagenet, Duke of Gloucester, fifth son of Edward III., was Mr. Stephen James Penny, the late sexton of St. George's, Hanover Square, who christened his eldest son (we believe still living) Plantagenet.—A. Hayward's Selected Essays, vol. ii. p. 188.

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¹ Walpole, vol. vi. p. 55.