Non-conformist marriages before the Hardwicke Marriage Act

[Marmaduke 123]

Could someone please confirm, is it the case that the Hardwicke Marriage Act merely confirmed existing practice? In other words, did marriages actually occur in non-conformist churches before the Act?

I know that non.conformist churches would have been few and far between at the time, but I understand that the Congregational Church pre-dated the Hardwicke Act. I am not sure about the Baptists.

Anne

[Little Nell]

Post Reformation, non-conformists were banned from conducting services including marriages services.  Most were therefore conducted in secret and may not have been recorded for fear of persecution.  Tolerance gradually overcame this but in order to prove the marriage had taken place, they were often recorded in the local parish church registers after some form of ceremony in their own place of worship.

Hardwicke banned marriage taking place in any unlicensed building and most non-conformist places of worship were not licensed.  Only Jews and Quakers were exempt - they had already been keeping good records, another omission that Hardwicke was trying to correct.

Nell