1910 marriage in C of E Church - not by banns or license but pursuant to statute....

[born in a pub]

in December 1910 a spinster aged 17 married a bachelor aged 22 in a Church of England Parish Church. The marriage was conducted according to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England - the section where normally you would see by banns, licence etc has been left blank and the wording below added:-

pursuant to statute 19x20 Vict. Chafo: 11q See; IV.

The Register Office where this marriage was registered advise me they have never seen this before on a certificate.

Can anybody help?

[Mary from Italy]

Can you scan and post that part of the cert? I think you've misread some of it.

19 & 20 Vict c. 11 appears to be the Inclosures Act 1856, but I can't imagine what that could have to do with marriages.

However, it could well be 19 & 20 Vict c. 119, which is the Marriage and Registration Act 1856.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Acts_of_the_Parliament_of_the_United_Kingdom,_1840–1859#1856_.2819_.26_20_Vict.29

[Christine in Herts]

Is it a transcribed certificate, or a photocopy one? Are you able to put up an image of just that bit? I just wondered whether there was any doubt about any of the letters/figures - handwriting can be so misleading.

Googling about Victoria and statutes tends to bring up Australian stuff.

Christine

[Mary from Italy]

Here it is:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/19-20/119

Sounds as though the couple were Protestant dissenters. I think the more common wording would be marriage by Superintendent Registrar's certificate.

The 1856 Act was replaced by the 1949 Marriage Act, I think.

[Olde Crone Holden]

No, something wrong there I think. The couple married in the parish church which would automatically use the rites of the C of E, I would have thought, UNLESS maybe the Vicar did not officiate, someone else did - who signed the cert off?

OC

[born in a pub]

Signed by J H Charles, Vicar.

[born in a pub]

I originally obtained this via Parish Records and took a copy. I then went to the Register Office and the Superintendent Registrar was kind enough to let me look at the original held in their records. She agreed that the wording I had written down was exactly what was written down on the certificate.

[Olde Crone Holden]

I do think this is odd and I assume that you looked at other marriages performed around the same date in the register to see if this was some idiosyncracy of that particular Vicar?

I would have said that it was possibly a noncon marriage performed in the Parish church as a great act of tolerance by the Vicar/Bishop - I believe such things happened in wartime when an alternative venue was not available - the chapel burnt down etc. (A roman catholic church in Liverpool allowed Jews to use the church for worship when their synagogue was bombed during WW2, for example) BUT - as the ceremony was performed in this case using the rites of the C of E, well, I'm puzzled!

OC

[Mary from Italy]

I originally obtained this via Parish Records and took a copy. I then went to the Register Office and the Superintendent Registrar was kind enough to let me look at the original held in their records. She agreed that the wording I had written down was exactly what was written down on the certificate.

I'm afraid she's misread it as well, then - "chafo" means nothing in legalese. It's probably "chap." (chapter).

The format 19 & 20 Vict c. [something] refers to an Act of Parliament, and the only one similar to c 11q that makes sense is c 119. The next part presumably reads "Sec. IV" (section 4), which you can find here:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/19-20/119/section/IV/enacted

or maybe section XIV:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/19-20/119/section/XIV/enacted

[Olde Crone Holden]

Can you tell us the name of the church, so that we can see if there is anything odd about it?!

OC

[Mary from Italy]

I bet Guy will have the answer to this at his fingertips (although I did check his website, and the 1856 Act isn't there).

[Olde Crone Holden]

Odder still, I've had a little google and that exact wording comes up as being the wording on a Superintendant Registrar's licence.

However, in the same article it states that a superintendant Registrar's licence may NOT be used for a marriage conducted in the C of E!!!!!!

OC