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  • Ideas, thoughts or opinions please.

    Hi
    I would appreciate your thoughts on what I think is quite an odd situation.

    Alice/Kinnemund/Eliza Kuhnermund married Harold Ernest Carlyon Otway on July 3rd 1877 Holy Trinity Brompton, Middx.
    She was 20, he was 23 & they married by license.
    In the GRO index there are 2 entries for her under the different spellings.

    Then also 1877 I found this in TNA

    Divorce Court File: 5208. Appellant: Harold Ernest Carlyon Otway. Respondent: Elisa Otway otherwise Alice Otway. Type: Husband's petition [hx].

    Covering dates 1877

    What grounds would Harold have had to divorce his wife so soon after their marriage?

    Harold married again in 1879
    Alice was living back at home in 1881 described as single.
    An Eliza Kuhnemund,( who I think was Alice) age 26 & a spinster married October 3rd 1882 to John Peter Groskopf.
    I thought if someone had been divorced then the details had to go down on a subsequent marriage certificate.

    I have found lots of newspaper articles about the divorce proceedings for Harold & his second wife but can't find anything re his first divorce.

    Moggie

  • #2
    It does seem astonishingly soon after the marriage if it was in the same year! I don't think anything would necessarily be put onto another marriage certificate though. Only if Alice/Eliza admitted to being divorced!

    I found it extremely interesting to visit TNA and look at the actual 1883 divorce file for my gg grandparents. there was lots of details about why he was divorceing her (she ran off with the gardener!!!!) However there was nothing about it in the local papers even though the relevant ones are well represented in the 19C collection.

    Anne

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    • #3
      What grounds would Harold have had to divorce his wife so soon after their marriage?

      Refusal to consumate perhaps?
      p.s. That would have been annulment though wouldn't it? Did they have annulment in those days?

      Chrissie passed away in January 2020.

      Comment


      • #4
        maybe one of them was already married? but then that would result in bigamy charges. unless you get the documents, i guess you wont know?

        Comment


        • #5
          maybe she wasnt pure when she married? or had a child, or someone said they had 'relations' with her?? who knows.. I guess the only way to find out would be to see the paperwork, but, it is most odd/interesting to say the least.
          Julie
          They're coming to take me away haha hee hee..........

          .......I find dead people

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          • #6
            Pregnant with another man's child.
            Adultery.
            Insane or suffering from a veneral disease (but either of these could be used as grounds for annulment, which was a lot cheaper than divorce).

            OC

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            • #7
              Ah, this is it, I reckon:

              Grounds for an accelerated divorce were a refusal to obey an order to restore conjugal rights. So, in other words, she left him and refused to obey a court order to return.

              Incidentally, reading the blurb on TNA divorce site, the date is when the divorce was petitioned, not necessarily when it was granted.

              OC

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              • #8
                Her previous marriage would only be mentioned if she mentioned it. When you get married, the registrar assumes that your name, age, address, marital status, father's name and occupation are what you tell him/her it is! At that time, divorce would be considered socially unacceptable, especially if she was the "guilty party".
                ~ with love from Little Nell~
                Chowns, Dunt, Emms, Mealing, Purvey & Smoothy

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                • #9
                  In those days probably refusal of conjugal rights or infidelity. Divorce wasn't as easy as it is now.
                  Whoever said Seek and Ye shall find was not a genealogist.

                  David

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                  • #10
                    Grumpy

                    Yes, definite grounds for divorce - but NOT for a very fast divorce.

                    If you look at my post #7 above, you will see the ONLY grounds for an accelerated divorce at the time.

                    OC

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                    • #11
                      hmm an annulment is more likely for those times.....it's not today when the likes of kim kardashian decide after 10 weeks marriage is no fun lol

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                      • #12
                        kyle

                        It's listed as a divorce, though, not as an annulment, although I don't know where annulments are listed. A legal civil annulment (as opposed to an ecclesiastical annulment) would take ages too.

                        OC

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Thanks everyone for your comments.
                          I spent most of yesterday afternoon with Alice/Elise's great nephew although he had no idea of her existence until I did some digging into his family tree. He has been concentrating on just his grandfather's branch of the family.I've suggested that he get a couple of certs to back up my findings so whether he will spash out for records of Alice/Elise's divorce remains to be seen. Any ideas how he would go about this & how much would it cost?
                          Alice/Elise was German,I don't know if that had anything to do with the divorce, perhaps she never told Harold.I don't think she had a child before she married him, there were no unaccounted for young children in her parent's house in 1881.
                          Reading through newspaper articles about Harold's second divorce makes me think that he was a nasty piece of work. Quoting a question from the judge in one of the articles."Was this your first divorce case?" Answer "No".

                          Moggie

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                          • #14
                            I was going to ask what the reason for the second divorce was - if he was a nasty bit of work perhaps she walked out shortly after marriage and refused to return. That would make HER the guilty party, so he could divorce her and pay no maintenance etc - perhaps that's why she considered herself still a spinster, lol.

                            OC

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Hi OC
                              I've just been reading through the 1887 article in the Times & I think Alice had a lucky escape!
                              Harold & his second wife Adelaide cross petitioned for a divorce. Adelaide citing cruelty & adultery & Harold citing adultery. The case lasted for 3 days. Some of it was held in camera regarding Harold abusing his own children. The judge said --he could not, dare not hand those children over to their father--he did not like leaving them to their mother, but he could not help it.The outcome was a judicial separation with costs.

                              Moggie

                              Comment


                              • #16
                                Gosh, yes, it was almost unheard of for an adulterous wife to get custody of her children. How distressing - but how interesting as well.

                                OC

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                                • #17
                                  so whether he will spash out for records of Alice/Elise's divorce remains to be seen. Any ideas how he would go about this & how much would it cost?

                                  If you, or anyone you can persuade to do it(!) can get to The National Archives at Kew you can see the records and photograph them with your own camera yourself for free. That's what I did. Mind you the cost of travelling from Carlisle was probably more than the cost of ordering copies from TNA but we had a fun time there with several other "look ups" to do.

                                  Anne

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