The parish of St Margaret's originally covered a large area. Consequently the registers of baptisms, marriages and burials are among the most extensive in London. The original registers are kept in the Abbey's Muniment Room and are only available for consultation in exceptional circumstances but they have also been microfilmed and can be consulted at the Westminster Archives Centre at 10 St Ann's Street, London, SW1P 2DE (020 7641 5180).
Among the famous names in the marriage registers are those of Samuel Pepys, who married here in 1655, John Milton (1656), Ignatius Sancho (1758), Winston Churchill (1908), Lord Mountbatten of Burma (1922), and Viscount Linley, son of HRH Princess Margaret (1993). More recently, Clementine Hambro, the great granddaughter of Winston Churchill was married in St Margaret’s, on 3 November 2006.
Among the vast number of baptisms are those of Lord Liverpool, Prime Minister (1770-1828) and 'Beau' Brummell, the famous Regency dandy.
Samuel Pepys' Diary
Pepys' marriage did not deter him from admiring many pretty women. In his diary for Sunday, 26th May 1667 he records that, visiting St Margaret's, he did "entertain myself with my perspective glass up and down the church, by which I had the great pleasure of seeing and gazing at a great many fine women: and what with that and sleeping, I passed away the time till sermon was done."
Ignatius Sancho
Ignatius Sancho was a black anti-slave campaigner who lived in the parish for several years. An eminent resident of the parish, he was married in St Margaret's in 1758 and several of his children were baptised here. He was buried in St Margaret's in 1780, and although the register gives no location of the burial, it may well have been in the churchyard. Olaudah Equiano, another abolitionist, was baptised in St Margaret’s as Gustavus Vassa in 1759 aged "12 years" according to the register.