Married by License

[Peggy]

I have a marriage cert, date 4 Dec 1869, showing that the parties were "Married in the Register Office by License before me Alfred Cooper, Registrar." (This was in Birmingham.) I believe that I have a widow marrying 2 weeks to the day after the death of the previous husband. (Insert appropriate quote from Hamlet here.) I guess a church wedding was out because there wasn't time for banns?

Is there a way to track down info about the license, and if so might I learn anything that is not on the marriage cert?

Thanks,

Peggy

[Guy Etchells]

A civil licence will not give any additional information than the marriage certificate.
An example is given in the 1835 Act -
WHEREAS ye are minded, as it is said, to enter into a Contract of
Marriage under the Provisions of an Act made in the Seventh Year
of the Reign of His Majesty King William the Fourth, intituled [here
insert the Title of this Act], and are desirous that the same may be
speedily and publicly solemnized : And whereas you C. D. [or you
E.F.] have made and subscribed a Declaration under your hand that
you believe there is no Impediment of Kindred or Alliance or other
lawful Hindrance to the said Marriage, and that you C.D. [or E.F.]
have [or has] had your [or his or her] usual Place of Abode for the
Space of Fifteen Days last past within the District of [ ].
And that you C. D. [or E. F.] not being a Widower [or Widow], are
[or is] under the Age of Twenty-one Years, and that the Consent of
G. H., whose Consent to your [or his or her] Marriage is required by
Law, has been obtained thereto [or that there is no Person having
Authority to give such Consent] : I do hereby grant unto you full
Licence, according to the Authority in that Behalf given to me by
the said Act, to proceed to solemnize such Marriage, and to the
Registrar of the District of [here insert the Name of the District in
which the Marriage is to be solemnized] to register such Marriage
according to Law ; provided that the said Marriage be publicly solemnized
in the Presence of the said Registrar and of Two Witnesses
within Three Calendar Months from the [here insert the Date of the
Entry in the Notice Book of the Superintendent Registrar], in the
[here describe the building in which the Marriage is to be solemnized],
between the Hours of Eight and Twelve in the Fore noon : Given
under my Hand this Day of One thousand
eight hundred and
(Signed) A. B.,
Superintendent Registrar

Cheers
Guy

[Peggy]

Thanks, Guy.

Too bad it wouldn't tell me any more, but at least I won't need to chase after it. :)

Peggy

[ChristineR]

...I believe that I have a widow marrying 2 weeks to the day after the death of the previous husband. (Insert appropriate quote from Hamlet here.) I guess a church wedding was out because there wasn't time for banns? .....Peggy

It sounds like the couple were just waiting for the husband to expire to make their own legal marriage - do you think it likely that they were probably already living together? just a thought.

ChristineR

[Peggy]

Hi ChristineR,

Almost certainly at the date of the marriage, as the address for both is just the street on which he lived. The previous husband died age 40, rather horribly, of disease. Did she stick it out to the last? Don't know, but she clearly had her plans made. A bigger mystery is what became of the children. My ancestress, age 8, was apparently sent off to America with strangers (I will find out who they were!) a few weeks before the death. But I can't find her sister 13 on the 1871, though I have her 1875 marriage cert. (Cert says age 19.) Now her husband, who was a "widower" in 1881, married the woman he'd lived with for 20 years as soon as she died (natural causes, said the coroner) at 42! And I can't find her one son in 1901, or a death record. Off to the Boer War, perhaps? Tangled tale on this branch of the tree.

Peggy