Can anyone explain this?

[Galium]

FindMyPast have a transcript for a Faculty Office marriage licence issued on 13 February 1834 for the marriage of Henry Webber and Margaret Charlotte James.  The transcript doesn't indicate where the marriage is to take place.

Familysearch has a transcript showing the marriage of this couple on 19 February 1834 at St George Hanover Square - so it doesn't look as though this is a transcript of the licence record

The register images for St GHS on FindMyPast  show no such marriage. The marriages in this register are numbered: marriage 103 was on 18 February and marriage 104 was on 20 February.

(The reason for my interest is that there is marriage in May 1834 of a Margaret Charlotte James to Henry George Higgs at St James, Westminster, also with a Faculty Office licence, but this one definitely did take place.  Margaret Charlotte James is a widow. I have no idea who she was or what became of her after Margaret Charlotte Higgs was sentenced to 21 days for larceny in 1836.)

[Pheno]

Am only taking a punt on this but I would assume the discrepancy between the dates is date of issue of licence and date of actual marriage.

Maybe there is another church/chapel which comes under the auspices of SGHS and it was in that building that the marriage took place but the record appears in the register for the mother church.  Have seen that previously for parish churches/chapels.

Pheno

[BumbleB]

To add to the confusion - there is a Marriage Licence (Webber and James) dated 19 February 1834 issued to James Webber by the Vicar General - Place = Dioceses of the Province of Canterbury.

Another transcription - Society of Genealogists.

EDITED:  Not sure why I said "issued to James Webber" - as no forenames are mentioned for either party.

[hanes teulu]

Margaret Charlotte James is a widow. I have no idea who she was or what became of her after Margaret Charlotte Higgs was sentenced to 21 days for larceny in 1836.)

Salisbury and Winchester Journal, Mon 12 May 1834
MARRIED - May 6, H. G. Higgs, Esq., of Bristol, to Margaret Charlotte James, of Calcutta

[hanes teulu]

The Calcutta reference fits her being described as "... of prepossessing appearance ... lately returned from India".

[Galium]

Many thanks, all of you.

I hadn't noticed the Vicar General licence record on FindMyPast, and I think that perhaps that explains where the familysearch transcript came from (the batch contains marriages from many different places).

So, it looks as if Henry Webber got two licences to marry Margaret Charlotte, and then didn't marry her after all. (Which was probably just as well for him, if she was indeed the same woman who married Henry George Higgs.  The newspaper story recounts a sorry tale.  I can't find either of them in 1841, and Henry George thereafter lives alone.)