Divorces from 1876-1887?

[npjewell]

Does anyone know how to find a record of a divorce in this time period? I am searching for the divorce of Alicia Sarah Kathleen O'Donnell and Herbert Babington Clay. they were married in 1876 and had one child (George Herbert Warren Clay. However, Alicia subsequently remarried in 1887. On her 1987 marriage certificate, she used her married name Clay but indicated that she was a widow? Herbert lived until 1905.

[phillip]

I have looked on Ancestry.Co England and Wales Civil Divorce Records 1858-1916 and can't see a divorce record for Alicia and Herbert. Another check on the data may be useful.As you say Herbert died age 48 July qtr 1905 Steyning 2b 151. Did they separate and not divorce? Divorce at that time was expensive and time consuming. Few people took that route.
There was nothing to stop a person lying about their marital status and committing bigamy.
I can't remember if there was a time period if someone left a partner which allowed them to re-marry.
Other researchers would be able to comment more fully on this aspect.
Phillip

[Pam Downes]

Link to the research guide published by The National Archives.
Just be very aware of the last paragraph in section 4.2.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/divorce/

Also, unless your people were quite well-off, it's possible there was no divorce - they just separated, and later quietly remarried. If you'd not had contact with someone for seven years, people used to use the 'seven years, must be dead' clause. Being unable to read or write did have its advantages. :smile5:

Pam

[Megan Roberts]

As Pam and Phillip have said divorce was expensive and therefore effectively unavailable to most ordinary people. What this led to was what today would be considered a shocking number of cases of bigamy.

Bigamy was relatively easy if you didn't live in a small community where everyone knew your business. You only have to do a general search through any old newspapers to see the stories of those who were caught. In the 10 years after 1880 a search on Findmypast's newspaper archive with the word "bigamy" brings up almost 40,000 hits.

[helachau]

Have you found the couple in 1881 - living together or apart? If apart, what was the marriage status?

Was your Herbert the Herbert BaVington Clay baptised India 1 January 1857? I can see a Herbert R Clay, born India, 1857 on the '81 Census, status single.

[Peter Goodey]

If indeed Herbert and Alicia were separated before 1881, it seems likely that there was neither divorce nor bigamy. This is because you could not be be convicted of bigamy if you could claim that your spouse had been missing for seven years and that you had no knowledge of him still being alive during that period.

See the Offences Against the Person Act of 1861.

[Pam Downes]

If indeed Herbert and Alicia were separated before 1881, it seems likely that there was neither divorce nor bigamy. This is because you could not be be convicted of bigamy if you could claim that your spouse had been missing for seven years and that you had no knowledge of him still being alive during that period.

See the Offences Against the Person Act of 1861.

Thanks, Peter, for explaining in more detail (and better English) what I was trying to say in post #3. (I'd got the general idea but couldn't remember the precise details. :smile5:)

Pam

[Peter Goodey]

...what I was trying to say in post #3

You did say that, Pam. Apologies for not reading it properly.

[Pam Downes]

You did say that, Pam. Apologies for not reading it properly.
No need to apologise, Peter. I did indeed say 'seven years', but you explained it so much better. And in legal terms. :smile5:

Pam

[npjewell]

Thank you all. the story is complex as Herbert and Alicia had a child George Herbert Warren Clay in 1876 three months before their wedding. It is hard to find any of them in the England censuses at the time as I believe they spent time in India where Herbert was a Lieutenant in the Dragoon Guards. It is possible that Herbert is the Herbert R Clay in the 1881 census marked "single" --everything is right except the middle initial. But if they had separated where was the son, George Herbert Warren Clay? In India with his mother? He married in 1895 at age 19 and spent most of his life in Rangooon, Burma.

[Lesley Robertson]

I have moved this thread from "Finding your feet" to the "Divorce" forum as those interested in the subject are more likely to see it there as time goes on.

[npjewell]

Thanks!

[npjewell]

The situation has grown more complex since first posting. Alicia Sara Kathleen O'Donnell was married a third time between the previously noted marriages to Herbert Babington Clay(1856-1905) (married 1876) and to Edward Keevil (1857-1923) (married 1887). Alicia married William Black (1853-1919) in Ayr, Scotland in 1879. This latter marriage was announced in the Glasgow Herald on December 25, 1879, where she is noted as widow of Herbert B. Clay (who was very much alive!). The marriage to Black apparently ended in divorce according to a description of divorce court proceedings as described in the Edinburgh Evening News on 22 Jan 1884. However, there is insufficient time for any 7-year separation and so the second and third marriages are possibly bigamous due to Clay still being alive (in both cases Alicia identified herself as a widow).