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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Berkshire => Topic started by: craven481 on Saturday 30 August 14 16:10 BST (UK)
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Does anyone know where I can find marriages at St Stephens, Reading c1870-1880?
Looked at the Berkshire Record Office website and they only seem to have baptisms [from 1865] but no marriages!
Can't even find a history or photo of the church via a web Google search.
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Berkshire Record Office has marriages for St Stephens from 1960-1974.
That seems to imply that it wasn't a CofE church?
Maybe this site can help?
http://www.berkshirebmd.org.uk
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I would be inclined to speak with the Berkshire Records Office regarding whether the church conducted marriages during the period you are seeking. It seems to have been a fairly short lived church and was amalgamated with St Johns in the 1970s. The BRO are shut to visitors on a Monday, but may be open to telephone enquires. Either that or contact the church direct, their contact details are here:
http://rva.org.uk/organisation/stjohnststephenchurc/
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the merging of st stephens and st john the evangelist in the 1970;s formed a community centre and a polish rc meeting place. All the st john the evangelist churches I can find are roman catholic, c of e seem to be st john the Baptist,
I can't find any marriage records anywhere
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the merging of st stephens and st john the evangelist in the 1970;s formed a community centre and a polish rc meeting place. All the st john the evangelist churches I can find are roman catholic, c of e seem to be st john the Baptist,
I can't find any marriage records anywhere
St John the Evangelist in Newbury is C of E, St John the Evangelist & St Stephen (http://"http://www.achurchnearyou.com/stjohnandstephencouk/") in Reading is C of E - I wouldn't read too much into the name.
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Best to ask the record office, but I wonder if marriages at St Stephen (if they took place) were included in the St John records. Berkshire BMD has indexed marriages at St John the Evangelist and St Stephen from 1863. Perhaps worth looking there, as it will say at which church the marriage took place, and cross referencing with GRO refs.
Alternatively Berkshire FHS may be able to help.
Whose marriage are you looking for?
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Thanks for all the helpful comments.
Marmaduke
We have been unable to find the marriage of my wife's great-grandparents, George Barwick/Berrick and Emily Withers. George was in Rupert St, Reading in 1871 unmarried and Emily in Marcham Park, Marcham.
Their first known child was Henry/Harry born 29 Jul 1877 abode 18 Arden Terrace
Cumberland Rd [from certificate]. Harry, and the next child, Jesse, were baptised privately by the vicar of St Stephens on 25th May 1879 - this info from a third party so not yet confirmed by ourselves. . This is what makes us think the marriage may have taken place there and somehow got missed off the official national marriage index!
BerkshireBMD has a Walter Barwick born Reading 1875 and died 1879 age 4 but we haven't yet obtained his birth certificate to see who his parents were.
We are hoping to pay a visit to Berkshire Record Office in the autumn but just hought I'd check on here first re St Stephens. It just seems a mystery that so little is know of the church.
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St Stephen's Church was in the Newtown area of Reading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newtown,_Reading -while St John's (definitely CofE) was in Watlington Street. The infant's school stood beside the church and the junior school was in Queen's Road.
The church was known as St Johns with St Stephens and the school as Reading St Johns school. The vicar, with a curate, looked after both churches and St Stephens was definitely the secondary church. I should think the records for both churches were held together. Certainly church-linked organisations such as the scouts, girl guides or young wives' group were common to both churches.
The area of Newtown around Orts road was redeveloped and some very damp riverside dwellings were demolished in the early 70s. During the 70s a new church (still called St Johns & St Stephens) http://www.achurchnearyou.com/stjohnandstephencouk/ and primary school were built and the Queens Road school was demolished to make way for office blocks, while the original church building was reconsecrated as a Catholic church for use by the Polish community.
Good luck with your search.
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St Stephen's was in Rupert Street, Newtown, on the corner of Orts Road. It was a separate church to St John originally, they combined sometime in the mid 20th century. It was built 1864-66, and extended 20 years later, so obviously it was well used at one time. There are flats on the site now, St Stephen's Court. I presume it was demolished around the time that the combined church moved with the school to a new building in Orts Road.
It's very strange that there are apparently no marriages before 1960! Definitely worth asking the current church about it as suggested above. I can see that Emily remarried in 1900, to George Smith, a neighbour, and there she is on the 1901 census with George and a lot of Barwick children, so she clearly wasn't anti marriage. The usual reason for not marrying was that one or the other party had been married before, and was separated from their first spouse, but I can't see a marriage for either George (Barwick) or Emily.
They could have married in the Wantage area I suppose, but still no civil registration to be found.
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I'm just modifying my post above a bit, in the light of further research! Information from the National Archives tells me St John and St Stephen were both daughter churches of St Giles originally. That would mean that they could perform baptisms and possibly burials, if they had a graveyard, but probably marriages, if they could carry them out, would be in the main church register of St Giles.
St John was established as a separate parish in 1872, and a note about the appointment of the vicar says he would also cover St Stephen. There was then some correspondence about where the boundary between St John and St Stephen should be. Marriages at St John start from 1873 according to Berkshire record office. I have checked St Giles marriages, and your couple's marriage isn't there, so I would expect to find it in the St John's register, if indeed they did marry in Reading.
Berkshire FHS haven't transcribed St Johns records, so it looks as if a trip to Reading might be indicated if you are nearby. If not, half an hours research by the record office should be enough to confirm or otherwise the existence of the marriage record. Here's a link to the relevant page about their services:
http://www.rootschat.com/links/019tt/
If they did marry at St John's, perhaps the fact that the church was new to marriages might explain why the marriage is missing from the GRO index.
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Thanks, Marmaduke. I've just emailed the St Stephens anyway to see if they can throw further light on the marriages. If I get a reply I will post the details on this Forum.
Ken
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There is no marriage shown in the BFHS St Giles parish register transcription.
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Thanks, Harry, for checking St Giles, Registers.
The reply I git from St Johns said:
"All our historical records are held by Reading Records office. Here is the link for their website and you can contact them by letter or email requesting the information you need and they can then find the original records for you. http://www.berkshirerecordoffice.org.uk/
It might be worth noting that in 1976 St Johns Church, Reading and St Stephens Church, Reading, both moved premises to form one church together. The records therefore could be filed under St Johns & St Stephens Church, Orts Road, Reading (current) or St Stephens Church, or even under St John’s Church (previous) but the records office are aware of this."
As said previously - I intend visiting the record office in Autumn so will contact them nearer the time.
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Thanks for the update. Do let us know if you find the marriage.