View Full Version : Bigamy - TOBIN, Hartlepool
bergman93
18-12-2011, 1:56 PM
Hi all, new girl here. I'm trying to trace the marriage of my Mum and Father. He was a bit naughty in that when he married my mum he already had a wife in Suez, Egypt! of all places. Anyway, I know he was a bigamist, but whether he committed bigamy by marrying my Mum or some other poor soul isn't clear. I was always told that the authorities knocked on the door for him, he was arrested and taken to court. I don't know whether this 'crime' would be punishable by a prison sentence or a fine or what. I can't find any marriage certificate which proves this nor any other information. I'm not sure when this offence took place, probably in the early 1950's, before say 1954. I was always led to believe he was arrested at some stage during my mum's pregnancy, but I don't know how true this is albeit it seems credible. I'd like some help on
1. Finding a record of the 2nd marriage.
2. Finding proof of the offence.
3. Anything which connects this man to me.
There are still members of the family around who knew him, knew where he lived and with who. But they aren't old enough to have been party to the information I'm looking for. As I understand it all marriages are recorded, but certificates are not necessarily available, some bigamous marriages slip through the net, don't think this one has. Also criminal records are closed for 75 years, I'll be too old to care by then!!! Any information tit bit is welcome. It's more than I have right now.
Heres hopeful Bergman93
Raffaele
18-12-2011, 2:16 PM
This is a link to FreeBMD which as it infers is free
BMD stands for births, marriages and deaths and all of these since 1837 have been registered
While FreeBMD is not complete I just checked a known 1946 entry and that was there
http://www.
freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl
bergman93
18-12-2011, 4:04 PM
Thank you for responding. I'm sorry I didn't say, but both my parents have died. I subscribe to both Ancestry and Find My Past, but I'm unable to find the marriage to my Mother.
Father - Philip Tobin b1914 Hartlepool
Served in the Merchant Navy, hence the marriage in Egypt I suppose (I have the certificate for this!)
Mother Mary Elizabeth Watson, nee Randall b1910 Penrhiwceiber, Glamorgan
Both were living in Luton, Bedfordshire at the time of the marriage.
I have found another marriage for Philip Tobin, but this was in 1963 in Luton to someone else, I'm presuming he was either a widower or had divorced the woman he married in Egypt by this time! But you never can tell!!!
Bergman93
bergman93
18-12-2011, 4:08 PM
Thank you Raffaele for the information, but I can't even find my own marriage (I just checked!) and I have looked again for the bigamous marriage, no luck. I've been looking for this for around 10 years now, spending weeks looking and searching and then leaving it for a year or so and going back, maybe I'm asking the wrong question, or possibly the right question in the wrong way. I've done that before, but like I said I have read that bigamous marriages aren't available for public scrutiny. This is why I thought I'd try the criminal offence route.
Megan Roberts
18-12-2011, 5:24 PM
I checked the marriages at findmypast which are fully searchable. There is no marriage of a Philip Tobin to a Watson.
Raffaele
18-12-2011, 6:30 PM
FreeBMD has this flawed record
Marriages Dec 1946
Brown Mary E Harrower Luton 4a 380
Harrower Lindsay P Brown Luton 4a 380
Harrower Lindsay P Watson Luton 4a 380
Hilditch Sidney Payne Luton 4a 380
Payne Joyce B Hilditch Luton 4a 380
Watson Mary E Harrower Luton 4a 380
According to this Lindsay P Harrower married Mary E Brown and Mary E Watson
Something is very clearly wrong and provokes the thought that the name was mistranscribed.
If so, then should it have been Philip Tobin.
I did check the originals which are GRO indexes and they do show exactly what is above.
It could be worth ordering a certificate specifying the parties or a visit to Luton Register office
Peter Goodey
18-12-2011, 6:38 PM
I can see a marriage in Suez, Egypt in 1941-45 of a Philip Tobin.
Is this the marriage you're referring to? If so, do you have the certificate?
Also I would have thought the 1963 certificate was something you ought to have.
Peter Goodey
18-12-2011, 6:46 PM
Something is very clearly wrong
Not necessarily. This is the standard way of indexing a marriage where the bride gave her name as Mary E Watson otherwise Brown, for example.
It's worth getting the certificate in any case.
judyg
19-12-2011, 12:09 AM
Hi Bergman93
Not only is there no marriage recorded for Mary Watson/Randell and Philip Tobin there are no births recorded to this couple.
There are several Watson births with mother’s maiden name Randell recorded.
Do you have a copy of your own birth certificate? Does it give the name Tobin as father?
Given that ‘family stories’ usually have a nugget of truth at their core, but tend to suffer from the “Chinese Whisper” syndrome, could it be that Mary & Philip were only living together at the time of your birth? If the 1963 Luton marriage is for the correct Philip, could this be the marriage he got charged with bigamy for?
Cheers
Judyg
Peter Goodey
19-12-2011, 10:12 AM
Not only is there no marriage recorded for Mary Watson/Randell and Philip Tobin there are no births recorded to this couple.
I can't see anything either. Not being able to spot a birth is a bit puzzling particularly in view of what the questioner wrote in message #4.
We definitely need more information from her if we are going to be able to help.
bergman93
19-12-2011, 12:31 PM
Thank you notanotherminer, maybe your suggestion would help, I know I'm struggling. I've recently paid a visit to Luton Library and checked out the Electoral Registers they have there, but ran out of time trying to search newspapers. I'd appreciate your help in moving this thread to the Bedfordshire Forum.
bergman93
19-12-2011, 12:39 PM
Hello Peter, Yes the marriage in Suez is the first marriage I believe and I have the certificate for this.
As you suggest I'll order the 1963 certificate for Philip Tobin as well.
Thanks for your help.
Colin Rowledge
19-12-2011, 12:52 PM
I can't see anything either. Not being able to spot a birth is a bit puzzling particularly in view of what the questioner wrote in message #4.
We definitely need more information from her if we are going to be able to help.
What does it say on the Questioner's own birth certificate?
dawnkaren
20-12-2011, 10:02 PM
im not sure if i have read this post correctly but what i can gather you are looking for a marriage of philip tobin in hartlepool? and appears to be sometime after 1963?
i have just looked on the tees valley site and found this,
1976 CARR LYNN Hartlepool
1976 TOBIN PHILIP
now i know you said he was married to a mary but perhaps this man is the one your looking for?
Peter Goodey
21-12-2011, 9:49 AM
Where do we stand on this?
As I see it, bergman93 said in message #4:
“Father - Philip Tobin b1914 Hartlepool...
Mother Mary Elizabeth Watson, nee Randall b1910 Penrhiwceiber, Glamorgan”
Our problem was that we couldn't see any corresponding birth.
So, looking at the mother's details I'm guessing that the following GRO references are relevant:
Births Jun 1910
RANDELL Mary Elizabeth Pontypridd 11a 611
Marriages Dec 1929
Randell Mary E Watson Bedwellty 11a 152
WATSON John H Randell Bedwellty 11a 152
Taking care not to identify anyone who might be living, there are a couple of likely births (right surname and right mother's maiden name) in Bedwellty followed by a couple in Luton.
This may be John H Watson's death:
Deaths Sep 1944
Watson John H 37 Luton 3b 418
If this is the right death, we need to pay particular attention to events after 1944.
I can see one possible later birth that ties in with the information given (surname Watson, mother's maiden name Rand?ll). The surname Tobin is not mentioned in the index.
There is also the mysterious marriage of Mary E Watson or Brown -
Marriages Dec 1946
Watson Mary E Harrower Luton 4a 380
Brown Mary E Harrower Luton 4a 380
This may be a completely different person but I think bergman93 will want to get a copy to check.
We really do need to know what details are shown on bergman93's birth certificate for the mother and father. We don't need bergman93 to identify herself if she doesn't want to.
I don't want to upset anyone but my suspicion is that there's a degree of family myth here. It may be that there wasn't really any form of marriage between Philip Tobin and Mary E Watson although he might well have been the biological father. One thing that might bear fruit is to search local magistrates court records for a maintenance order. I can't recall what the closure period might be but a Freedom of Information request would be OK providing the records are extant. Bedfordshire & Luton Archives would have to be consulted.
Coromandel
21-12-2011, 4:34 PM
There is also the mysterious marriage of Mary E Watson or Brown -
Marriages Dec 1946
Watson Mary E Harrower Luton 4a 380
Brown Mary E Harrower Luton 4a 380
According to New York passenger lists on Ancestry, Lindsay Proctor Harrower (26, b. Edinburgh) arrived in New York on 15 April 1948 with his wife Mary Eileen (26, b. Luton). So the Mary E. Watson/Brown who married Lindsay Harrower was not a Mary Elizabeth. It looks like the marriage did not last: she is back in the Luton area marrying again in 1955, whereas Lindsay P. Harrower (b. 21 August 1921 Scotland) died 30 July 1964 Los Angeles according to the California Death Index on Ancestry.
Coromandel
21-12-2011, 4:39 PM
As I see it, bergman93 said in message #4:
“Father - Philip Tobin b1914 Hartlepool...
Though there is a Philip Tobin birth registration in the Hartlepool district in 1914 (mother's maiden name Wilson),
I am not convinced this is the same Philip who was later in the Luton area. There is a death registration of a Philip Tobin in the Luton district in March 1988. The GRO index gives the date of birth of this man as 18 December 1905.
I can't see a corresponding birth registration on FreeBMD (i.e. in England/Wales) or see him on the 1911 census in England/Wales, but there are a couple of possibilities on the 1911 census for Ireland.
bergman93, can you confirm the date and place of your father's death?
Peter Goodey
21-12-2011, 5:15 PM
So the Mary E. Watson/Brown who married Lindsay Harrower was not a Mary Elizabeth
Jolly good. That's one thing that doesn't need to be pursued.
Peter Goodey
22-12-2011, 12:57 PM
More on whether bigamous marriages still appear in the GRO indexes...
Google Groups threw up this reply to a similar question in 2008...
It is certainly the case at the GRO for England and Wales that even if a
marriage is subsequently discovered to be bigamous, the record of the
marriage remains forever, both as a certificate and in the indexes. I
imagine it must be the same at the Scottish GRO.
I have personally uncovered a number of bigamous marriages, both in
cases that were not discovered (except by me) and also in cases where
there was a subsequent prosecution. Why would the marriage record be
removed, in any case? The fact is that the marriage took place and
whether it was bigamous does not alter that historical fact!
One bigamous marriage I uncovered was that of the great-grandfather of
Dame Judi Dench, George Joseph Dench, who underwent a bigamous
marriage at Kensington in 1887 when he had a legal wife still alive in
Weymouth, Dorset. I wrote about this in a published article on bigamy in
Your Family Tree magazine in 2006. However, this bigamy was never
discovered until I looked into it.
Another case concerned an Anglican clergyman, the Rev Harry Lloyd
Bickerstaffe, who bigamously married a young woman in Cambridgeshire
in 1859. In that instance the case came up in Leeds, Yorkshire, where he
was currently living and working. He got sent to Dartmoor Prison. There
was an unusual outcome to this case, since he did his "porridge", came
out and remarried the bigamous wife, Anna Maria Campbell, legally at
Kenilworth, Warwickshire, in 1862, after his first wife had divorced him!
You will find the Rev Bickerstaffe in the marriage indexes at FreeBMD in
both 1859 and 1862. The first marriage at Linton, Cambridgeshire, was
illicit and bigamous, the second was not. However, both are still there in
the indexes to this day, and why not? As I've said, even if a marriage is
subsequently proved to be bigamous it cannot be removed from the
records, nor should it be.
--
Roy Stockdill
Professional genealogical researcher, writer & lecturer
bergman93
23-12-2011, 5:08 PM
Hi Judyg, sorry I've been a while responding, I've been away. In answer to your questions, I have the birth certificates for both Mary E Randell (Randall) - the spelling changes frequently! and Philip Tobin. I also have a copy of my own BC and the father's name has been left blank. I know 'family stories' are prone to change but Philip Tobin was well known to my family and several members of the family knew him until his death. I, on the other hand, never even knew his name until after my mother's death. There is also another family connection, oh heaven this is complicated!!! Oddly enough he was brother to an aunt by marriage (making her an aunt by blood too!) This would be how my mother met him, because he was staying with his sister in the same road, the sister being married to my mother's brother!!!
My mother told me that two policemen came to the house to arrest him whilst she was pregnant with me. He was apparently taken to court and convicted (don't know the sentence) but he was also taken to court for child maintenance (don't know what it was called when I was young) but he paid up - the money being taken from his wages every week until I reached the age of 16. Whether there was only one court appearance to 2, I'm afraid I don't know. How I wish I'd asked questions before it was too late.
Thank you all for being so helpful.
bergman93
23-12-2011, 5:22 PM
Hello Coromandel, thanks for looking. The Philip Tobin you've found in Hartlepool for 1914 is correct, his mother's maiden name was Wilson. And I agree regarding the Philip Tobin death in Luton 1988, the year of birth is all wrong. Sadly I don't know his date of death and I'm not sure of his place of death either, I'm assuming it was Luton. The DOB for the man who died in 1988 isn't the birth date (never mind the year!) for my Philip Tobin, his birth was 8 June 1914, father Laurence Tobin, mother Margaret, formerly Wilson. The marriage in Suez is also the correct man. The marriage certificate states father as Lawrence Tobin and his age together with profession, all match.
The 1963 marriage is also correct, the name of the person and the address where she was living all tie in with what I've been told. I'm just stuck on the bigamous marriage, allegedly to my mother and there wasn't any reason to lie. This has been kept a very closely guarded secret in the family, but now that all those involved have passed away cousins etc., are willing to talk, problem is they don't know dates or facts, only what the eavesdropped when they should have been in bed! It is said he was a very nice man, sadly that doesn't help, does it? I'll soldier on.
Thank you for your help.
dawnkaren
23-12-2011, 6:25 PM
ancestry has this death for a philip tobin, Philip Tobin
Birth Date: 1914
Date of Registration: Oct-Nov-Dec 1969
Age at Death: 55
Registration district: Elstree
Inferred County: Hertfordshire
Volume: 4b
Page: 101
his fathers marriage in hartlepool
Marriages Dec 1901 (>99%)
TOBIN Lawrence Hartlepool 10a 276
WILSON Margaret Hartlepool 10a 276
bergman93
24-12-2011, 6:06 PM
Hello Peter
You are so right. Mother born Penrhiwceiber March 1910 (Pontypridd district) m John Henry Watson in Bedwellty 1929.
John Henry Watson died Luton 1944.
Four children from this marriage.
I am assuming the later birth is me - March 1951. Spelling is incorrect, but I think it's me.
Don't know anything about Watson/Harrower/Brown, nothing to do with my family.
My birth cert., only shows my mother, there is a dotted line through the box for father.
I also tend to agree with your last paragraph in that the bigamous marriage didn't happen, but too many people seem to know about it. I think my only hope would be either court records or Bedfordshire Newspaper Archives.
Thank you for your assistance.
Bergman93
Mutley
24-12-2011, 7:37 PM
Unfortunately, like the others, I have been unable to find the marriage.
I have two bigamous marriages in my tree.
1.The lady married her first husband under her maiden name. She married the second husband under her maiden name. She married the second husband, a second time, following the death of husband number 1. This time she correctly used her first married name.
All three marriages are in the index and I have all three certificates.
2. Both wives tried to claim for his effects when the husband died so no doubt there! Both marriages are in the index and I have both certificates.
As far as I know though, there were no court cases.
I wonder if Philip used another name for the marriage to your mother, knowing it was bigamous. A variation of some sort?
I don't suppose he was witness to the marriage of the brother and sister?
Is there any help on your siblings birth certificates, if his name is on one of them you may be able to apply for his WW2 service record?
Sorry, I just cannot think of anything else other than newspapers.
Mutley
24-12-2011, 7:49 PM
I also had a look at the death indexes.
You can search for a death, if after 1969, using just the birth date.
Sadly it returned something like 1,500 being male and females.
Narrowing it down using first Philip, then Phillip, then Tobin, I still could not see him though it depends on who registered the death and what was entered, it was worth a chance. :sad:
bergman93
04-01-2012, 3:53 PM
Thanks to you I've just received the death certificate for Philip Tobin which is registered as above. All details match. The reason he died out of county was because he was in hospital. His usual address was where I'd heard he was living. I can't thank you enough for your help.
bergman93
Peter Goodey
04-01-2012, 5:56 PM
I suppose there's a chance that he intended to marry bigamously but that he was rumbled before he could do so. If they were intending to marry in church (of England), there are the banns registers that you could check. Otherwise I can't think of anything.
I think your best option is to search local court records for a maintenance order. You would have to travel back to your home territory for that or perhaps you could commission some research if funds permit.
bergman93
05-01-2012, 2:18 PM
Thank you to you all for your help in this
Bergman93
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.5 Copyright © 2024 vBulletin Solutions Inc. All rights reserved.