Dr John Wilson (1595-1674), the first Master of the King's Music, was born in Faversham in a house on the corner of Abbey Street and Church Street. A building put up on the site in 1902 as a wine and spirits store bears a plaque commemorating him. Wilson is held by some authorities to have played the original part of Balthazar in Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing. He produced settings of several of the songs in Shakespeare's plays and was professor of music in the University of Oxford. Wilson's birthplace was near Arden's House, Abbey Street, which has its own Shakespearian link in the theory that Arden of Faversham was written by Shakespeare, who visited the town as an actor.
The plaque
Location of the plaque
The site in Abbey Street, Faversham, of the birth in 1595 of the musician John Wilson