Davies, Caleb

Marriage Licences

The Church considered it important to prevent any secrecy or uncertainty about marriage, and canon law declared that marriage be contracted publicly. The custom of publishing banns of marriages became a rule of the western church in 1215. Bishops gradually acquired the power of dispensing with the necessity of banns by granting a common licence to marry. A special licence to marry at any convenient time and place was granted only by the Archbishop of Canterbury through his officials.

By the beginning of the eighteenth century the authorities were concerned by the increase of clandestine marriages, performed by a priest, but without banns or licence. Many were carried out at so-called 'lawless churches', which included the Fleet, the Mint, the Savoy Chapel, and the New Chapel, Mayfair, and afforded facilities for forced or fraudulent marriages. In 1753 Parliament dealt for the first time with the principles of the law of marriage and passed 'An act for the better preventing of clandestine marriages', commonly known as Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act (26 Geo.II c.33). This enacted that marriages performed without banns or licence were void, although, by the Church's law, they were irregular but still valid. This anomaly between civil and canon law was not resolved until the Marriage Act of 1823 (4 Geo. IVc.76) which restored the Church's rule.

In 1750 the Reverend Alexander Keith was appointed to officiate at the newly built St. George's Chapel in Mayfair, within the parish of St. George Hanover Square. As a result of Keith's industry in promoting and celebrating clandestine marriages he was excommunicated in 1742 and later committed to prison. He established a 'little New Chapel, in May Fair, near Hyde Park Corner', in a house close by the original chapel, and his assistants continued to celebrate marriages there until Hardwicke's Act came into operation on 25 March 1754.

The licences were issued by the Ordinary of the New Chapel. They give the date, the name, parish and condition of the parties and a declaration that they are of full age, know of no lawful impediment by precontract or blood and are 'of no better estate than they appear to be, and they are not under the care of the Court of Chancery'. The licence was issued at the time of the marriage, and the marriage registered by the officiating minister.

The original registers of marriages (and baptisms) performed at St.George's Chapel and the New Chapel, Mayfair, by Keith and his assistants are with the parish registers of St. George's Church, Hanover Square. Duplicate and additional registers are held in the Public Record Office in the series Registers, Unauthenticated, Fleet etc. (ref. RG7). Transcripts have been published by the Harleian Society in 'The Register of Baptisms and Marriages at St. George's Chapel, May Fair, 1740-1754', Westminster Section 1889.

Further licences for marriages performed in the New Chapel, Mayfair, 1746-1754, are held in the Greater London Record Office (refs. ACC/0680 (part), Ac.51.1(part)), but, as yet, these have not been catalogued.