Shortest time between marriages.

[Olde Crone]

Just found this. He didn't waste much time!

14 July 1856 Bolton St Peter
James Holden x full widower fishmonger of Great Bolton
to
Mary Smith X full widow of Great Bolton
GF; (illegitimate)
BF:John Moscrop

THEN

30 October 1857 Bolton St Peter
James Holden X full widower Fishmonger of Great Bolton
to
Ann Berry X full widow of Great Bolton
GF: James Holden
BF: John Ainsworth.

I make that a total of 471 days between marriages! Anyone beat that?

OC

[JayG]

Can't beat that OC, my 3x great grandmother married her first husband 6 May 1869, he died 30 Dec 1869 & she then married my 3x great grandfather 12 Nov 1870.

When did Mary Smith die?

[Shona]

He was a widower when he married Mary Smith. How long had he been a widower when he married her?

[Asa]

I'm always very impressed with my many times great grandmother Sarah Crossley whose first husband was buried on 4th Nov 1736 in St Dunstan Stepney, in which same church she remarried on New Year's Eve 1736 to her second husband - after banns.

edit - sorry just realised that's not really what you were asking :-)

[Olde Crone]

Asa

No, but it's an extension of the same question. I reckon yours is the winner of the shortest gap between death and remarriage!

OC

[Muggins in Sussex]

Well I have Caroline Ruth Dowsett marrying Clarence Thomas Platt on 8th August 1918, and then marrying Henry William Wicks on 26th December 1918.

Not sure that really counts, though!:d

[Merry]

lol Joan!

I don't think I have any particularly close marriages in my tree. I have five for one person, but that's my only record.

[Sue from Southend]

This one doesn't beat any of the others quoted but always struck me as being particularly cynical!

Charles Butcher marries Sarah Byford Jun 1843. Sarah dies in 1844 and in Oct 1845 he marries her sister, Mary....

[Mary from Italy]

Marrying your deceased wife's sister was quite common, although I don't think it was actually legal at the time.

[Vicwinann]

My Great granduncle
Alfred Lesley Stanley Leigh married Selina Laws in 1873 She died 2 March 1879. Died in childbirth. June 30 1879 married Elizabeth Anderson nee Mills. Cannot find a death for her but on 1 August 1880 he married Emily Rattledge.
She died 25 Nov 1896, but in the meantime ALS Leighs had bigamously married Elizabeth Holt 8 Nov 1888. In fact, all these marriages were bigamous because he was still married to Phoebe Paxton who he wed on 20 Oct 1861.
Vicwinann

[Phoenix]

Marriages Mar 1852
Seabridge Thomas West London 1c 67
Hannah Howorth. d Mar 1870 aged 45

Marriages Dec 1858
SEABRIDGE Thomas Marylebone 1a 671
This is a different Thomas, thank goodness!

Marriages Sep 1870
Seabridge Thomas Pancras 1b 67
Skillings Margaret Maria
d Jun 1871 aged 29

Marriages Sep 1871
SEABRIDGE Thomas St Saviour 1d 80
Gowing Maria Elizabeth
d Sep 1872 aged 29

Marriages Mar 1873
Seabridge Thomas St.Saviour 1d 56
Seager Sarah

Thomas Seabridge was married to four different women in no more than 42 months. Margaret and Maria were already related by marriage and I seem to remember Sarah Seager knew the family too, so I suspect TB or childbed, rather than brides in the bath!

[ElizabethHerts]

My great-great-grandfather doesn't hold any records, but he had four wives in 18 years:

1) Lavinia Hargreaves Widow (née Merrick)
Father James Merrick coal agent
Lavinia made her mark
Charles was a bachelor and a Joiner
Father Charles Alexander Joiner
30th January 1843 Parish Church of Bury by Banns

Lavinia died 19th January 1850 at 56 Brunswick Street Heywood
Aged 34 years
Wife of Charles Alexander Joiner
Cause of death: Peritonitis 1 week certified.
Informant: Charles Alexander Present at the Death

2) Mary Porritt
Charles and Mary married on 5 August 1850 St Mary’s Bury
Marriage Certificate Charles Alexander/Mary Porritt.
"Charles Alexander of full age Widower Joiner Father - Charles Alexander Joiner
Mary Porritt of full age Spinster Father - Samuel Porritt Millwright.".
Both resident in Heywood

Mary died 11 September 1855
at Bridge Street Heywood
Wife of Charles Alexander Joiner
Mary died of phthisis pulmonatis certified
Jane Leach was present at death
Her age was given as 37..

3) Charles married Mary Ann Jackson
6 March 1856 Parish Church of Bury
Aged 40 Spinster (probably older as at death she was 49)
Father John Jackson, joiner
Charles aged 35 Joiner
Witnesses: Jas Catterall and Hannah Jackson

Mary Anne Alexander died
aged 49
28 December 1860
Bridge Street Heywood
Wife of Charles Alexander, a Joiner
Cause of death: Anaemia
Informant: Charles Alexander Present at the death of Bridge Street Heywood

4) Charles married Ann Sylvester
aged 29 Spinster
Father Edward Sylvester Farmer
Resident at Morton St, Greenheys at time of marriage
18th? March 1861
Christ Church Moss Side Lancashire


I don't know what happened to Ann. She seems to disappear before the 1871 census, but Charles is still married.

[ElizabethHerts]

The length of time between deaths and remarriages appears rather indecently short to our eyes.

[Merry]

Marriages Mar 1852
Seabridge Thomas West London 1c 67
poss m Hannah Howorth. A Hannah Burrell Seabridge d Dec 1856



You are right, those two are marriage partners. Jan 12th 1852 Thomas, bachelor whitesmith, father Charles Seabridge whitesmith. Witnesses Christpoher Alsop and Martha Jane Royal.

[Phoenix]

You are right, those two are marriage partners. Jan 12th 1852 Thomas, bachelor whitesmith, father Charles Seabridge whitesmith. Witnesses Christpoher Alsop and Martha Jane Royal.

Thanks, Merry! It demonstrates the danger of doing these things from memory/without proper supporting detail.

Taking up Elizabeth's point, I do wonder how many of the subsequent marriages were to women that the previous wives actually knew - as nurses or extended family who initially stayed on to keep house/look after small children.

One member of my family is publicly credited with one child. However, his second wife nursed his first wife and first wife's brother (second wife's first husband) through terminal cancer and they were having an affair while first partners were both dying.

[Suein10b]

Can beat this. My maternal grandparents William Emberley died 3 April 1933. My grandmother Alice Beatrice Emberley nee Masters remarried to John Bawden 1 June 1933.

[marquette]

Can beat this. My maternal grandparents William Emberley died 3 April 1933. My grandmother Alice Beatrice Emberley nee Masters remarried to John Bawden 1 June 1933.

I can - just on six weeks for mine - my greatgrandmother Edith Hannah was buried on 8 Nov 1923 and her husband James Eccles remarried to Eliza Robinson on the 22 Dec 1923.

I have to note here that they had been estranged, but not divorced, as far as I can tell, since before the 1911 census, when they are living in different places.

Great-grandmother had remarried on 12 Jun 1918 in Manchester after James and children had departed for Australia in 1914. But James waited until word reached him from Manchester, that she had died before he married Eliza in Rockdale Sydney.

[Olde Crone]

All four of my 2 x GGF married twice and three of them married a first or second cousin the second time.

OC

[BlueSavannah]

I have my great x 4 grandfather Charles Fowler who's first wife Margaret Cousins was buried on the 31st March 1844 and he married his 2nd wife Margaret Hinchliffe on the 6th May 1844. More interesting is that my great x 3 grandmother Harriet Fowler who was Charles & Margaret Hinchliffe's first child together, was born on the 29th December 1844 which means she was conceived before her parents married.

[Merry]

My 2xg-grandfather's elder brother was born whilst his mother was nursing her aunt who was dying. Unfortunately the father of the baby was the husband of the dying aunt! The parents married a short time after the first wife had died.

But this thread is about people having two marriages in quick succession, rather than just having a new spouse soon after the death of the previous one! I don't think I have any of those......(I think probably Muggins is the winner!)

[Shona]

Tangential fact. Robert Burns, the poet, on this day in 1786 decided not to leave Scotland to work in Jamaica. Burns wife, Jean Armour, gave birth to their child, Maxwell, on the same day as his funeral - 25 July 1796.

[crawfie]

More on the cynical I think - William Cotton's first wife was buried 10 Sep 1899, and he remarried on 4 Dec 1899. Not that newsworthy in itself, but wife No. 2 must have been waiting in the wings, as on the same day as his first wifes funeral, his 2 illegitimate children by his 2nd wife were christened.

[Mary from Italy]

Goodness!

[Mary from Italy]

One of other shortest marriages on record must be my great-grandmother's. After cohabiting for many years, because her first husband was still alive, she risked a bigamous marriage to her elderly gentleman friend while he was on his deathbed, and he died 3 days later. Not quite sure how compos mentis he was at the time; he'd had a stroke 2 days before the marriage, and signed with a cross, whereas he was perfectly literate.

[Merry]

That's interesting Mary - where did they marry? Did they have to get special permission to marry at an unlicenced venue?

[Mary from Italy]

This was in Australia in 1909. I assume they would have needed some kind of special licence, but Australian certificates don't mention whether the marriage is by licence or banns.

They were married by an RC priest, and I assume they were married at home, because the place of marriage is the road where they lived, but it doesn't give the house number.

[Merry]

Ah! - I would imagine the rules might have been very different in Australia!