Register Office Marriage

[Val Goddard]

For the first time in my research I have received a marriage certificate where the marriage was at a Register Office rather than a church. Date 1857. Was this common? And what might the reasons have been?

Val

[Mythology]

I have a few back into the 1850s.

Not that it's conclusive, of course - as the 1851 ecclesiastical census shows, despite what the story books tell you about the Victorians, attendance figures at church were pretty poor in reality - but, so far, all mine have turned out to be either nonconformists on one side, presumably using the register office as a compromise to satisfy both families, or nonconformists on both sides whose local chapel was not licensed for weddings.

[mary elms]

I also have some that go back to the 1850s. Like Mythology mine are nonconformists. One of them re-married in the 1890s and by then the chapel was registered for weddings.

Mary.

[Colin Moretti]

They could be Roman Catholic.

I have one of mine married in the Register Office in October 1837, they also married in a Catholic church on the same day, as did several others in later years.

Colin

[Val Goddard]

Thanks - many of the family ended up as Methodists so perhaps that was the reason

Val