Stephen Beckingham

Stephen Beckingham ( – October 5, 1756) was an English barrister, member of the gentry, and jurist who served as the justice of the peace of Kent.

He is now best known as the bridegroom in William Hogarth's 1729 painting The Wedding of Stephen Beckingham and Mary Cox.

Life Beckingham was born in the 1690s into the prominent Beckingham family who were associated with London's Inns of Court. Several members of the family accumulated considerable landed wealth in Essex and Kent. He grew up in Beckingham Place.

He was apprenticed in 1715 to George Wheeler of the Inner Temple and educated at Lincoln's Inn, where he was admitted on January 8, 1717. As county magistrate he participated in the administration of justice through the Quarter Sessions, which exercised extensive judicial and administrative authority over eighteenth-century Kent.

Beckingham was a friend of Thomas Cooke who dedicated his 1753 Ode on Benevolence to him. Beckingham is listed in records as "Sir Stephen Beckingham" after 1740.

Marriages In January 1729, Beckingham married Mary Cox at St. Benet's, Paul's Wharf. Their wedding was a prominent society event at the time, widely attended, and was painted by William Hogarth. Mary Cox Beckingham died in 1738. After marrying Corbett, Beckingham moved to her family's ancestral home of Bourne Place. Together, they had one son, Reverend John Charles Beckingham, who entered the Church of England and became rector of Upper Hardres. They also had two daughters, Catherine and Charlotte. His obituary appeared in The London Magazine shortly after his death.

His granddaughter, Louisa, married Edward Taylor, the member of parliament for Canterbury.