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Registry Office Marriage 1840

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  • Registry Office Marriage 1840

    I've just been given a copy of a marriage certificate for a couple who married in a Registry Office in 1840. I hadn't seen one for that long ago and wonder why they didn't have a church wedding. The couple are down as widower/widow and 'of full age'. I know the rest of the family were Baptists. He remarried about a year after his first wife died leaving several young children. Would a Registry Office marriages been common then?

  • #2
    Lizzy

    Well, they were very common in my family - I have one from 1837, almost as soon as the Register Office opened its doors!

    The couple already had four children. They were strong nonconformists and I can only assume they preferred to "live in sin" rather than enter a church.

    There is another pattern running through my family as well - first marriage in church. Remarriage in a Register Office. I think this showed a conviction that you could only take holy marriage vows once in a lifetime and that to do it again would be disrespectful to the dear departed. Remember, many Victorian second marriages were marriages of convenience - the widower got a free housekeeper, his children got a mother, and the wife got a roof over her head and financial support.

    Finally - differences of religion are responsible for some Register Office marriages. Some of the nonconformist religions did not have a licence to marry anyway, so that is yet another reason for a RO wedding.

    OC

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    • #3
      Thanks for that, I did wonder if it was because they were Baptists and maybe their local Baptist church wasn't licensed for marriages and their convictions or the local vicar wouldn't let them be married in the Parish Church.

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      • #4
        For a marriage to be recorded in the church register (a) the church must be licensed for marriages and (b) the minister must be licensed to perform marriages in that church. Otherwise the registrar must be present and the marriage will be recorded in his/her "travelling" register. At a recent wedding in our church (licensed for marriages) , the ceremony was conducted by a minister friend of the family but our minister had to do the "legal" bit of the questions and fill in the church marriage register.
        Uncle John - Passed away March 2020

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