John Bainbridge was born in the village of Oulston in 1789 to parents John Bainbridge & Mary née Wright. The baptism was held two miles away at Saint Michael & All Angels Church in Coxwold, where his parents had married three years earlier. The church would be favored by the family for generations to come.

Coxwold was at one time a market town, and, though in the early 18th century the market had been ‘long disused,’ some of the dignity of a town still lingered.
