page_title: Hedley Churchward
section_title: Early years
hierarchical_section_title: Hedley Churchward / Early years
caption_attribution_description: English: The exterior of Church of St Michael the Archangel in Aldershot in Hampshire
context_page_description: Al-Hajj Hedley Cole Churchward, was an English set designer and painter, notable for converting to Islam and in 1910 being the first known British Muslim to make the Hajj.
context_section_description: Born in Walmer in Kent in 1862 to Eliza née Cole (1833–1914) and farmer's son Richard Gunter Churchward (1833–1912), Hedley's father was a cook in the British Army at the time of the Crimean War, an occupation he still held when he married Hedley's mother Eliza in 1858 at St Michael's church in Aldershot. In 1861 when Richard Churchward was initiated as a Freemason into Wellington Lodge No 1086 in Deal in Kent but residing at nearby Walmer his occupation was given as Military Mess Master.
  By 1871 Richard Churchward was the landlord of the Royal Exchange public house in Aldershot and here Hedley lived as a boy. Eric Rosenthal in his biography of Hedley Churchward makes a number of unsubstantiated claims regarding the young Hedley Churchward, such as that the Churchwards were members of an ancient aristocratic family and that because of his father's success in Aldershot the young Hedley became known to Queen Victoria, the Empress Eugenie and the philanthropist Baroness Burdett-Coutts. He further claims that during Hedley's childhood he came into contact with his father's rather unusual circle of friends and acquaintances and was sent to Kilburn College, where he "shared lollipops with the sons of South American presidents, of Indian generals, of big-game hunters, polar explorers and professional empire builders" (Eric Rosenthal, From Drury Lane to Mecca). Certainly, in 1871 aged 9 he was a boarder at Cleveland House School in Hampstead with his older brother Owen.
caption: His parents married at St Michael's church in Aldershot in 1858
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