Married "on Supt. Registrar's Certificate"

[Aulus]

Hi all,

I got a marriage certificate today and, while the couple were married in the Parish Church of St James, Darwen, "according to the rites and ceremonies of established church", but both the "by" (which I think would normally be used for "by licence") and the "or after" (which would be used for banns) have been struck out and the vicar had written in "on Supt. Registrar's Certificate".

The bride was 29, and the groom 25 and the marriage was in September 1919.  The groom was demobbed at the end of January 1919.

Should I read anything into the use of Superintendent Registrar's certificate?

I've only ever seen it before when the marriage has taken place in a methodist or independents' chapel, and in those cases the registrar has countersigned the certificate.

[Little Nell]

Barbara Dixon has this to say in her tutorials about Englishand Welsh certificates:

"By superintendent registrars certificate" is a very rare finding. It is issued for a Church of England marriage but instead of banns being called in the church, notice of marriage has been given to the superintendent registrar. In the early days this would be necessary where services were held so infrequently e.g. in a small chapel,that it was not possible to call the banns on three succesive Sundays and get married all within the three months time limit. Later on it was sometimes used as an expedient if for some reason the vicar did not want to make the forthcoming marriage in the church public knowledge and have the entry in his banns book which anyone can look at. The sort of problem might be where a bride and groom were of different persuasions and the vicar either didn't want the congregtion in general to know or even the bride/grooms family if he thought they might try to disrupt the ceremony. It is sometimes used these days when one of the couple is divorced and the vicar does not want it generally known that he is marrying a divorcee in his church.

See here: http://home.clara.net/dixons/Certificates/marriages.htm

Nell

[Aulus]

Thanks Nell.  Very interesting ...