Michael Faraday was born on 22 September 1791 in Newington Butts, Surrey (roughly where the Elephant and Castle is in modern London), and died on 25 August 1867 at Hampton Court, Middlesex. His father was a blacksmith and his mother had been in service in a household in northwest England before they moved to London, which they had done by 1788 and possibly earlier.
The Faradays belonged to a small literalist sect of Christianity called the Sandemanians and Faraday officially joined the church when he was 30 by making his Confession of Faith in 1821. That same year he married Sarah Barnard, who was also from a Sandemanian family. He was a Deacon in the Church from 1830 to 1840, and an Elder from 1840 to 1844 and again from 1860 to 1864.