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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: LizzieL on Monday 20 July 15 13:26 BST (UK)
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I know it is a legal requirement to have 2 witnesses to a marriage, and most of the records I have seen do only have just two. Occasionally there's a third one, but the third is frequently some kind of parish official and not closely connected to bride or groom.
Would there be any particular reason why a couple would choose to have more? Was it a class thing, like some people say about the number of forenames a child is given?
While looking through a marriage record for someone completely different, I came across the marriage of the Rt Hon Charles Manners Sutton to Ellen Home Purves on 6 Dec 1828 at St Georges Hanover Square. They had 9 witnesses!
The image on ancestry seems to be just a copy record because the handwriting is the same, so not original signatures. It would be interesting to see how they squeezed them all in. At least the clerk copying them could space the names out carefully.
They were married by Special Licence, would that make a difference as far as witnesses were concerned?
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Just noticed one of the witnesses is Evan Nepean. He is the curate who conducted several other marriages on the same double page, including the one I was originally looking for.
Wonder who all the other people are.
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There are about twenty witnesses on the marriage certificate of The Queen and Prince Philip
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7101753.stm image number 5
See also http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=356710.0
Stan
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Here's some info about Charles Manners-Sutton:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Manners-Sutton,_1st_Viscount_Canterbury
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the marriage of the Rt Hon ....
Not sure about this, but I believe there was a topic (long ago?) with a similar question.
One of the answers there (from memory) is that Lords and Ladies (and Rt Hons) were often more particular about witnesses, because of dynastic and inheritance problems (real, imaginary or even in psssibilities thereof in the future).
Regards,
Bob
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The image on ancestry seems to be just a copy record because the handwriting is the same, so not original signatures.
The image is the Bishop's Transcript. From 1598 incumbents were required to provide their diocesan bishop, or his equivalent, usually at Easter, with copies of the entries in the parish register covering the previous year.
Stan
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I thought it must be a BT. They do seem to vary a lot in their format. Some I've seen are almost unreadable, and just on scraps of paper, worse than my shopping lists.
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Before 1812, bishops’ transcripts were usually recorded on loose pieces of paper. Following that year, the transcripts were recorded on the same preprinted forms as parish registers.
Stan
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Here's some info about Charles Manners-Sutton:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Manners-Sutton,_1st_Viscount_Canterbury
He was very well connected. I see his father had been Archbishop of Canterbury until his death in July 1828. If he'd lived until the end of the year Charles would have had to apply to his own father for the Special Licence!
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I've just found one with thirteen!
James Lindley esq widower to Ann Trotter minor with consent of her father Sir Coutts Trotter, 2nd April 1823, also in St George H S.
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I have a Scottish marriage cert from 1920 where there are 6 witnesses.
Everyone listed on the marriage cert were related to the bride and groom, including both presiding Free Church Ministers.
However, I know something that even they would NOT have know....
The Great grandfather of the bride was the brother to my own ggg grandmother, who in turn had a son.
The son and his wife took in an infant ( b 1857) as a nurse child.
This child ultimitely became a fully fledged member of the family.
This child appears on this marriage cert too.
He was the registrar!
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I've just found one with thirteen!
James Lindley esq widower to Ann Trotter minor with consent of her father Sir Coutts Trotter, 2nd April 1823, also in St George H S.
I wonder if Evan Nepean officiated at that one too?
According to this page (actually about his father)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Nepean
in later life he was Chaplain to Queen Victoria. So perhaps he was getting used to the royal way of doing things!
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In the early 20th century there seemed to be a fashion in my part of Lancashire for lots of witnesses.
I've seen as many as 7 witnesses for the marriage of an Ag Lab. Things settled down later - my grandparents only had 4 witnesses in 1926.