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Jonathan Battishill (May 1738 – December 10, 1801), was a composer and organist, who lived his final months in Islington. He began his career as a composer writing popular theatre music but later devoted himself to working as an organist and composer for the Church of England. He is considered one of the outstanding 18thCentury English composers of church music and is best remembered today for his seven-part anthem Call to Remembrance. While working in Covent Garden he met and fell in love with actress Elizabeth Davies who had originated the role of Margery in Thomas Arne’s Love in a Village. However, soon after the pair married she left him, running away to Ireland with another man. Battishill himself found love again but never fully recovered from the betrayal and sunk into alcoholism. It was said that “from this period he dissipated much of his time in convivial parties, and so far gave way to excess, as gradually to undermine his constitution.” He died at Islington, aged 63, and, according to his last request, was interred near Dr Boyce, in the vaults of St Paul’s Cathedral. This street, dating from 1848, was originally called Hardinge Street after 1st Viscount Hardinge, (1785 – 1856), field-marshal in 1855 and a great ally of the Duke of Wellington. He watched Napoleon’s movements on his escape from Elba in 1815. It was changed in 1938.
