I am trying to ascertain where these will be held for Manchester Cathedral and other Lancashire churches. I have asked at the Local History Centre in Manchester ,but they did not know.
Can anybody help.
Thanks
Lancashire Record Office. Do a search for 'Marriage Licences' (without the quotes) here Lancashire Record Office for a summary of their holdings
If you're doing a similar search on Google - then do put in double inverted commas " " to make sure it's treated as a single term and not two separate items.
This is also true for any site that uses Google's search-technique (usually labelled as such).
Christine
Researching: BENNETT (Leics/Birmingham-ish) - incl. Leonard BENNETT in Detroit & Florida ; WARR/WOR, STRATFORD & GARDNER/GARNAR (Oxon); CHRISTMAS, RUSSELL, PAFOOT/PAFFORD (Hants); BIGWOOD, HAYLER/HAILOR (Sussex); LANCASTER (Beds, Berks, Wilts) - plus - COCKS (Spitalfields, Liverpool, Plymouth); RUSE/ROWSE, TREMEER, WADLIN(G)/WADLETON (Devonport, E Cornwall); GOULD (S Devon); CHAPMAN, HALL/HOLE, HORN (N Devon); BARRON, SCANTLEBURY (Mevagissey)...
They may not exist (or ever have existed) because Manchester Cathedral was a Peculiar and was outside the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical bodies. It reported directly to the Crown, not the Diocese.
I know from the Parish Records that they were married by Licence. Does this mean that the licence records did exist but may not now exist?
Yes, unfortunately that is often the case.
However, although you mention specific churches, I would expect the main records of Marriage Bonds and Allegations to be in the records of the Church Court (Diocese or Archdeaconry) that granted them, rather than in the records of the individual church. Although if Manchester Cathedral was indeed a Peculiar then they might be an exception.
The LRO web site at Lancashire Record Office says
"The bonds and allegations associated with the granting by the church courts of marriage licences are available at Lancashire for the Archdeaconry of Richmond. Printed indexes are available for certain years and copies of the documents can generally be supplied. A database is under construction for the years not covered in the printed indexes."
If you go to Lancashire Record Office | Archives | Simple Search and search on 'Allegations' (without the quotes) the first item in the list is "ARR/11 Archdeaconry of Richmond Marriage Bonds 1756-1820" which seems to include some 23000 items.
Seems to me your best bet would be to ask the Record Office directly.
Manchester Cathedral (as a parish church, note) did not come under the jurisdiction of the Archdeaconry of Richmond.
Man Cath has now given up its Peculiar status I believe, but do not know when that happened. So marriage licences from that date may exist in the proper place.
Comment