HAPPY 145th BIRTHDAY TO GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON!
On May 29, 1874, a genius was born to Marie Louise, née Grosjean, and Edward Chesterton in CampdenHill, Kensington, London but I’ll let him tell you how it happened….
“Bowing down in blind credulity, as is my custom, before mere authority and the tradition of the elders, superstitiously swallowing a story I could not test at the time by experiment or private judgment, I am firmly of opinion that I was born on the 29th of May, 1874, on Campden Hill, Kensington; and baptised according to the formularies of the Church of England in the little church of St. George opposite the large Waterworks Tower that dominated that ridge. I do not allege any significance in the relation of the two buildings; and I indignantly deny that the church was chosen because it needed the whole water-power of West London to turn me into a Christian.” – G.K. Chesterton, Autobiography
Image sources: G.K.Chesterton at 17 and Campden Hill, Kensington in 1905 with the Water Tower that Chesterton refers to at the end of the street.
