The Church of St. George’s, Hanover Square, is probably better known, by name, throughout England, and beyond its shores, wherever English newspapers penetrate, than any other church of the Metropolis, with the exception of st. Paul’s. This celebrity does not arise from its antiquity-for it is a modern structure; nor from the historical associations connected with it—for it has none of these. Our fair readers will probably be the first to guess to what the true cause of the renown of St. George’s is to be attributed. Its name is a necessary part of those paragraphs in the fashionable journals which so frequently appear during “the season,” headed “Marriages in High Life.” It is the aristocratic temple of Hymen; the torch he carries here has been lit at the chandeliers of Almack’s, and fanned by the breezes of a Chiswick fête; it is here he puts on his brightest array; and though at less distinguished altars the happy knot can be quite as securely tied, it is here he hides the fetters with brilliants, and covers the yoke with a wreath of orange blossom. It is here he delighteth to have a bishop for his minister, and troops of the noble and titled to say amen to the blessing. In short, the account of a fashionable marriage would read tamely and imperfectly, did it not commence in the usual form—”Yesterday at St. George’s, Hanover Square.”
As the reader passes under that portal which stretches over the pavement of the very throng and mart of fashion, to the great accommodation of the dark-eyed vendor of plaister medallions, and many other wanderers whose callings occupy an equivocal line between trade and mendicancy, he may find much food for reflection, though it dates but from yesterday in comparison with the old gothic piles, whose portals are paved with the tombstones of crusaders, and lead to an interior which has echoed to the solemn and majestic service of a worship that owns the sacred building no more. The stones of that porch, reader, have been pressed by the sandalled feet of many a bride of patrician rank and queenly beauty, attended by all the splendour that the wealth of the most wealthy aristocracy of the world can throw around a ceremony that scarcely needs such adjuncts to make it interesting. To some that splendour came but as a thing of course, scarcely differing from that which passed around them in their daily life; to others that brilliancy was the object to be gained, and for it perhaps were bartered early hopes, present affections, and future peace a heavy price, but one which is too often paid for wealth and advancement. Some have purchased all that surrounds them willingly, and have triumphed in doing so, and were it given to man to read the heart as a book, would be most deservedly despised. Others may have been the victims of authority too powerful to be resisted, too harsh to be submitted to without a struggle and what shall be said of these? The beggar who stands on the curb-stone, and gazes on all that bright array as at a pageant of another world, is more to be envied in the comparison. Let us hope that many, very many of the “happy pairs” who have from this porch set out on their joint journey through life, have fully realized the hopes and anticipations that went with them on their way; but many too have passed forth to coldness, estrangement, and neglect, and found that the bright vista before them was terminated by a blighted name, dishonour, and Doctors Commons. But speculations (for which the reader will hardly thank us) are leading us away from facts.
The history of St. George’s, Hanover Square there is something very Morning-Post-like in the repetition of the title-is soon told, nor does it puzzle the narrator with much research. The parish to which it belongs was taken “a monstrous cantle out” of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, when this parish was found to be too populous for all reasonable church accommodation or parochial management. The church was built in 1724, and the structure dedicated to St. George the Martyr, but whether this saint is the St. George of “merrie England” we really cannot tell. The building is sufficiently elegant, without being of mark enough to make for itself an artistic reputation. The portico, the most prominent portion of it, is supported by Corinthian columns of rather large diameter. Two towers of the same style of architecture surmount the portico, and the body of the building is again crowned by a dome terminated by a ball and vane. The ground on which it is built was given by Lieutenant-General Stewart, and the living is a rectory in the patronage of the Bishop of London. We are not aware of the value of the living, but from the circumstances before alluded to, the surplice fees must amount to something handsome.
The Illustrated London News, London, England, Week Ending July 23, 1842
