My understanding of the law concerning an ordinary common or garden marriage after banns in 1839 is that it should have taken place in the parish where one or other of the parties lived. Regular readers will be familiar with the trancripts of various relevant Acts which our fellow forum member, Guy Etchells, has helpfully provided on his web site. I have read through these, and failed to spot anything which contradicted my belief.

Exceptions are made for extraparochial places. In 1823 we find that exceptions are also made for churches that are temporarily shut due to rebuilding or repair. In both cases, though, we find that the marriage is instead to take place in an adjoining parish or chapelry.

Both parties to this marriage lived at Kelvedon Common, Essex. Kelvedon Common, not to be confused with (nearby) Kelvedon Hatch or (miles away) plain Kelvedon, is part of the parish of Doddinghurst. As usual, somebody couldn't spell, but the line for the groom has "Kelvdon Common" with "Essex" underneath, and the line for the bride has "Kelvdon Common" - that's plain enough! It is at Kelvedon Common, Doddinghurst, that we find them living on the 1841 census, and the bride's mother was buried at Chipping Ongar, not a million miles away, in 1837, with her abode given as "High Ongar", so it does not appear that the bride has moved very far on account of her marriage.

There is nothing iffy about the marriage. From baptism records, the groom would have been about 42 and the bride about 39, so this is not some young pair sneaking off somewhere. Neither of them had been married before, so nobody's run off from a partner for a bigamous second marriage. Knowing the family history and reading between the lines, I suspect that they got married simply to provide more of a "family" atmosphere for the groom's nine year-old niece - her mother had died, her father promptly did a runner, and she's with this couple in 1841. They had no children of their own, and from the fellow's will, it looks as though they treated her as a daughter.

(continues)