Morley marriages

[mezentia]

I'm looking for parish register entries for Morley. I've found the William Smith transcripts, but it only contains baptisms and burials between 1654 and 1830 for batisms, and 1634 and 1880 for burials. Where are the marriages? Are there earlier registers, i.e. pre-1654? Where do I find them?

[BumbleB]

Genuki indicates that Morley came within the parish of Batley:

"MORLEY, in the parish of Batley, Agbrigg-division of Agbrigg and Morley, liberty of Pontefract; 4 miles from Dewsbury, 4½ SW. of Leeds, 7 from Wakefield. Pop. 3,031. It is a perpetual curacy, without Church or Chapel.
In the time of Domesday, Morley had a parish church; but it seems to have been reduced to the dependent state of a Chapel to Batley, by Robert de Lacy, the founder of the latter Church, and so to have continued till the great rebellion, when it was leased out, by Saville, Earl of Sussex, to certain Presbyterian trustees, for the term of 500 years, and ever since that time it has been used as a place of worship for Dissenters; and is said to be the only instance throughout England and Wales, of an ancient established place of worship, which was not restored to the established Church, at the restoration. It retains much of the form of a Church, and has a choir and two side aisles, supported upon wooden pasterns instead of columns, but marking the hands into which it has fallen, by sectarian frugality and inelegance. --Whitaker's Loidis and Elmete. It was some time back used by the Unitarians, now by the Calvinists.

Morley, although situate in Agbrigg-division, appears to give name to that portion of the wapentake of Agbrigg and Morley, called Morley-division. See Agbrigg."

[BumbleB]

Ancestry have images for the registers of All Saints, Batley from 1559.

Added:  FindMyPast have the Bt's from 1600.

[mezentia]

Thanks, BumbleB, I will be taking a look at those.

I notice that the Smith transcriptions says Morley and Topcliffe. However, I thought Topcliffe was in the North Riding. So, where was the Topcliffe Congregational church in relation to Morley?

[BumbleB]

Sorry, I don't know the answer to that one. 


ADDED:  Just realised you have mentioned Congregational church in relation to Topcliffe - and that is the reason you can't see any marriages, as they were not allowed to conduct marriages prior to 1837.  My copy of WYAS Non-Conformist registers lists 13 chapels in Morley, but I can't see Topcliffe.

[jksdelver]

Topcliffe Chappel was in the parish  of Woodkirk. Long gone now.

. Basically a house but had its own burial ground. Some of the markers were transferred to Morley Old Chapel (Morley St Mary’s)