Keith's Chapel

Keith's Chapel. See Keith's Chapel by Pat Rogers.

[Dr. Keith's Chapel.] Here was a chapel for the celebration of private and secret marriages, which stood within a few yards of the present chapel in Curzon Street. It was presided over by a clergyman, Dr. George Keith, who advertised his business in the daily newspapers, and, in the words of Horace Walpole, made "a very bishopric of revenue." This worthy parson having contrived for a long time to defy the Bishop of London and the authorities of Church and State, was at length excommunicated for "contempt" of the Church of which he was a minister; but he was impudent enough to turn the tables upon his superior, and to hurl a sentence of excommunication at the head of his bishop, Dr. Gibson, and the judge of the Ecclesiastical Court. Keith was sent to prison, where he remained for several years. His "shop," however, as he called it, continued to flourish under his curates, who acted as "shopmen;" and the public was kept daily apprised of its situation and its tariff, as witness the following advertisement in the Daily Post of July 20th, 1744: "To prevent mistakes, the little new chapel in May Fair, near Hyde Park corner, is in the corner house, opposite to the city side of the great chapel, and within ten yards of it, and the minister and clerk live in the same corner house where the little chapel is; and the licence on a crown stamp, minister and clerk's fees, together with the certificate, amount to one guinea, as heretofore, at any hour till four in the afternoon. And that it may be the better known, there is a porch at the door like a country church porch."

But the rank and fashion of May Fair did not care whether the fees demanded were high or low, provided they could get the marriage ceremony performed secretly and expeditiously, yet legally. "Sometimes," writes Charles Knight, in "Once upon a Time," "a petticoat without a hoop was led by a bag-wig and sword to the May Fair altar, after other solicitations had been tried in vain." As an instance of the way in which this marriage, not à la mode, worked in West-end society, let us take the following sketch from Horace Walpole in his best style:—"Did you know a young fellow that was named 'Handsome Tracy?' He was walking in the Park with some of his acquaintance, and overtook three girls; one was very pretty. They followed them; but the girls ran away; and the company grew tired of pursuing them, all but Tracy. He followed them to Whitehall Gate, where he gave a porter a crown to dog them. The porter hunted them, and he the porter. The girls ran all round Westminster, and back to the Haymarket, where the porter came up with them. He told the pretty one that she must go with him, and kept her talking till Tracy arrived, quite out of breath, and exceedingly in love. He insisted on knowing where she lived, which she refused to tell him; and after much disputing, went to the house of one of her companions, and Tracy with them. He there made her discover her family, a butter-woman in Craven Street, and engaged her to meet him next morning in the Park; but before night he wrote her four love-letters, and in the last offered to give two hundred pounds a year and a hundred a year to Signora la Madre. Griselda made a confidence to a staymaker's wife, who told her that the swain was certainly in love enough to marry her, if she could determine to be virtuous, and to refuse his offers. 'Ay,' says she; 'but suppose I should, and should lose him by it?' However, the measures of the cabinet council were decided for virtue; and when she met Tracy next morning in the Park, she was convoyed by her sister and brother-in-law, and stuck close to the letter of her reputation. She would do nothing; she would go nowhere. At last, as an instance of prodigious compliance, she told him that if he would accept such a dinner as a butterman's daughter could give him, he should be welcome. So away they walked to Craven Street; the mother borrowed some silver to buy a leg of mutton, and kept the eager lover drinking till twelve o'clock at night, when a chosen committee accompanied the faithful pair to the minister of May Fair. The doctor was in bed, and swore he would not get up to marry the king, but added that he had a brother over the way who perhaps would, and who did marry them." It is to be hoped that the union, thus hastily and thoughtlessly concocted and cemented, turned out a happy one afterwards.

[Keith's Chapel.] Opposite "May Fair Chapel," or "Curzon Chapel," and within ten yards of it, stood "Keith's Chapel," the chapel of the Rev. Alexander Keith, the "marriage broker," one of the most notorious of the places for the performance of irregular and unlicensed, or, as they were called, "Fleet" marriages. Keith's conduct subjected him to ecclesiastical censure, and in the month of October 1742 to a public excommimication. Careless of character, and indifferent about all objects but money and notoriety, he excommunicated in return the bishop of the diocese ; Dr. Andrews, the judge ; and Dr. Trebeck, the rector of St George's, Hanover Square. Being told that the bishops would put a stop to his marryings, "Let them," replied the irreverent priest," and I'll buy two or three acres of ground, and, by God, I'll underbury them all !" In one of his advertisements he describes the position of his chapel:—

We are informed that Mrs. Keith's corpse was removed from her husband's bouse in May Fair, the middle of October last, to an apothecary's in South Audley Street, where she lies in a room hung with mourning, and is to continue there till Mr. Keith can attend her funeral. The way to Mr. Keith's chapel is through Piccadilly, by the end of St James's Street, and down Clarges Street, and turn on the left hand. The marriages (together with a licence on a five shilling stamp and certificate) are carried on for a guinea, as usual, any time till four in the afternoon, by another regular clergyman, at Mr. Keith's little chapel in May Fair, near Hyde Park Comer, opposite the great chapel, and within ten yards of it ; there is a porch at the door like a country church porch.—Daily Advertiser, January 23, 1750.

In this chapel James, fourth Duke of Hamilton, was married to the youngest of the beautiful Miss Gunnings, "with a ring of the bed curtain, half an hour after twelve at night."¹ This was on February 14, 1752, and in 1754 the Marriage Act put an end to Keith's vocation. On the day before the Act came into operation, March 24, sixty-one couples were married in Keith's chapel. In some years as many as 6000 marriages were performed there. The season most prolific in such marriages was during May Fair. Among the many noteworthy marriages of which Keith's chapel was the theatre two or three may be mentioned. On September 3, 1748, "Handsome Tracy" to the Butterwoman's daughter in Craven Street, at twelve o'clock at night.

The Doctor was in bed, and swore he would not get up to marry the King, but that he had a brother over the way, who perhaps would, and who did.—Walpole to Montagu (Letters, vol. ii. p. 128).

William, Earl of Kensington, to Rachell Hill of Hempstead, September 14, 1749. Margaret Rolle, widow of Horace Walpole's brother (the second Earl of Orford), March 25, 1751, to the Hon. Sewallis Shirley. Edward Wortley Montague to Eliz. Ashe of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, July 21, 1751. Lord George Bentinck to Mary Davies, June 29, 1753. The most remarkable of all, however, would, if it were authentic, be that of George III., when Prince of Wales, to Hannah Lightfoot, the pretty Quakeress. But the prince wanted nearly three months of being sixteen when Keith's chapel was closed, so we may set down this story, however confidently asserted, as fabulous. Keith died a prisoner in the Fleet in 1758.

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¹ Walpole to Mann, February 97, 1752. Miss Gunning became the wife of two and mother of four dukes—of two Dukes of Hamilton and two Dukes of Argyll.