Alexander Davis and Mary Tregonwell

In the churchyard of St Margaret's Westminster is an altar tomb, surrounded by railings near the north door, for Alexander Davis, scrivener, and his wife Mary, who later married John Tregonwell, It is the only tomb that was in the churchyard, the other graves being flat stones which were all covered with grass in the 19th century. It was originally further west in the centre part of the churchyard. The inscription was re-cut in 1977 and reads:

Here lyeth interred the body of Alexander Davis of Ebury in the county of Middlesex, Esquire, who dyed July 2nd Anno Domini 1665, aetatis suae [aged] 30. Here also lyeth Mary Tregonwell, wife first of ye said Alexander Davis, afterwards of John Tregonwell of Dorset, Esquire, and daughter of Richard Dukeson D.D. She was a lady of exemplary piety and charity and dyed universally lamented on the 11th day of July 1717. Aged 75 years

Alexander was born on 17th April 1636, a son of John, draper and merchant adventurer, and his wife Mary (Pecock). His brothers were Sir Thomas and William and his sister was Dorothy. He died of the plague

Mary's father was rector at St Clement Danes church in London. By Alexander Mary had a daughter Mary, baptised at St Giles in the Fields who inherited major estates in the area near what is now Buckingham Palace. She married John Tregonwell, of Anderstone Manor, at Chelsea in 1666 and had four daughters (Elizabeth, married Henry Seymour, then Dr James Welwood), Dorothy, Jane and Mary). John died in 1681.