Westminster Meeting House

The Westminster Meeting House is a Friends meeting house (a Quaker place of worship) at 52 St Martin's Lane in Covent Garden, London WC1. It shares its frontage with an adjoining shop. The Westminster friends have been meeting at this location since 1883.[1]

The Westminster Meeting House in November 2014

The philosopher Bertrand Russell and the activist Alys Pearsall Smith married in the meeting house in 1894. In Russell's autobiography he relates that the guests at the wedding seemed moved to preach about the Miracle at Cana which offended his bride's teetotal sensibility.[2] The artist Richard Morris Smith made a drawing of their wedding and a photograph of the drawing was donated to the National Portrait Gallery by Barbara Halpern in 1999.[3]


The meeting house and adjoining shop is listed Grade II on the National Heritage List for England.[1]

The meeting for worship is held on Sundays from 11am to 12pm; on Tuesdays from 1 to 1:30pm and on Wednesdays from 6:15 to 7pm.[4]

References
  1. Historic England, "52 and 53 St Martin's Lane WC2 (1264792)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 10 July 2017
  2. Bertrand Russell (1998). Autobiography. Psychology Press. p. 126. ISBN 978-0-415-18985-9.
  3. National Portrait Gallery: 'A Quaker wedding' (The marriage of Bertrand Russell and Alys Pearsall Smith) | National Portrait Gallery, accessdate: July 8, 2017
  4. "Westminster Quakers". Westminster Quakers. Retrieved 10 July 2017.

51.51077°N 0.12684°W / 51.51077; -0.12684

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