marriage "with consent of friends"

[Nell]

I found my gt x 3 grandparents Mary Brewer and William Pope [honestly the number of William and Marys I have in my tree!] getting married 1826.

In the marriage register it says they were married "with consent of friends". What does this mean?

[ElizabethHerts]

What type of church was it, Nell?

"Friends" always makes me think of Quakers, as we had a "friend" mentioned in a will and this opened the floodgates to researching our family as they were Quakers for several generations.

[Mary from Italy]

I seem to remember that "next friend" means next of kin. I've certainly found "friends" used to mean relatives in some cases. (These weren't Quakers, by the way.)

[Lynn the Forest Fan]

I have one of these & it conveniently says in brackets, "parents deceased", she was also a minor. this marriage was in 1816

[Nell]

Thanks people. It was the parish church of St. Ervan, Cornwall and they were as far as I know C of E.

I just wondered as it doesn't give ages. I know William was about 28 or 29, but have no idea about Mary. I just wondered why it said friends and not father or guardian?

[Olde Crone]

I have one as well, in Lancashire 1810, C of E.

Consent of Friends really meant (well, in this case, anyway) that her "friends" had no objection to the marriage, "friends" being someone of responsibility and standing in the community.

She was 19 and orphaned, possibly had dnough dosh to attract a fortune hunter, lol and the Vicar was trying to make sure all was as it should be - perhaps he didn't know bride/groom all that well and needed someone to speak for her.

OC

[Nell]

I know next to nothing about Mary Brewer, other than the fact she married in 1826, had two daughters in 1827 and 1831 and then died later in 1831. The whole area is rife with Brewers all called William, John, Mary or Nancy. Poor woman, she seems quite anonymous.

I don't think she was an heiress as William was a shoemaker on their daughters' baptisms and still in 1841 after his 2nd marriage (another Mary!). By 1851 he is farming 16 acres, and in 1861 he's got 25 acres and is a grocer. He's reduced to running a grocer's shop by the time he died though.

[Oakum Picker]

I think some churches had these pre-printed forms with 'with consent of' whilst others had the pre-printed form without that phrase. Where the couple didn't actually need consent, they put in 'of friends' in some cases whilst in others it was just ignored.

[Nell]

Thanks for all your help people. I had thought it meant she was a minor, just puzzled about the wording. Perhaps she was an orphan. A short life then, leaving her younger daughter, my gt x 2 grandmother, motherless at the age of 10 months.

[Olde Crone]

Yes, a minor and her "inheritance" needn't have been much at all. This is just the paternalistic church taking care of the little woman who, being a minor AND female, couldn't possibly be expected to sort the good from the bad.

Oakum - never seen a preprinted marriage register with "consent of" anyone, let alone "consent of friends".

I also have a couple of marriages (1790s/1800s) where the wording is "consent of those whom the law requires" but this is always written in by hand and is not pre-printed.

OC

[Nell]

Thanks OC. I can see I will have to dig a bit to find anything of substance about poor Mary.

[kiterunner]

Yes, there were lots of pre-printed marriage registers with the words "with consent of" and then a space to fill in who gave consent, and I have seen some where the person filling it in obviously didn't realise it only had to be filled in for a minor.

[Oakum Picker]

Oakum - never seen a preprinted marriage register with "consent of" anyone, let alone "consent of friends".

Well, I have certainly seen a page in a register, can't say from memory whether it was the whole thing. The words 'with the consent of' were printed & if the couple were minors 'their parents' was added & where they weren't it was sometimes ignored or 'their frriends' was entered.

[Olde Crone]

Ah well, of course I haven't seen EVERY marriage register in the British Isles, lol. Perhaps they didn't go in for preprinted registers much in Lancashire (well they DID, but anything about consent is written in by hand).

Nell - I've just remembered something else, which may not be relevant of course. "Consent of friends" I believe, could override a father's refusal to allow his minor daughter to marry, and would be used where she was pregnant. The "friends" could be anyone, but would always be someone of higher rank or clout than the father of the bride and was often the vicar himself. I don't have any examples of this.

OC

[Lynn the Forest Fan]

The one I have is certainly on a preprinted form. I would like to think that she had been an heiress as well, but think it is probably unlikely in her case. She is another who I know little about, she married, had 4 children, appears on the 1841 & then vanishes. :(

[Merry]

Legally, those under 21 had to seek the consent of their parent(s) or their legal guardians or the local court- I don't think 'friends' were supposed to count! Of course what was legal and what happened in real life were often drastically different! lol

[Olde Crone]

Merry

I think "friends" meant just anyone who had the bride's best interests at heart and I suppose MIGHT include their guardian? But there must have been some underage who had no formal guardians.

I have this scene in mind....young girl, no family, wishes to marry. The vicar thinks she's a bit simple and discreetly asks around, does anyone know this bloke, is he ok or is he after the £3.15s she's got sewn into her skirt waistband. Her employer, the local Doctor says oh, the bloke seems ok, he works for the local solicitor as a gardener.

This informal approval of the union translates as "with the consent of friends".

OC

[Merry]

I agree OC, but she and the prospective groom should have gone to the court for consent. I have never seen a marriage record where there has been a suggestion of this happening though!

[Merry]

I've just been reading an 1823 article in the Morning Post about a new marriage act. That says if there's no parents then the Court of Chancery must appoint a legal guardian and that guardian is then responsible for giving consent. So, that's a different twist again.

Oh it also says that those obtaining false consent, giving mis-info to obtain a marriage licence or being found guilty of false swearing (does that mean lying about one's age?) is liable to transportation for life!

[Nell]

Yes, I bet that happened a lot (not)!

[Nell]

I've gone through more parish registers and uncovered a few more "with the consent of friends" but none that mention parents, so maybe that's just the vicar's way of saying it was approved.

[Oakum Picker]

I have just looked at the St. Ervan register & as I thought it is pre-printed with the words 'with consent of'. The first curate Thomas HAMLEY 1813 - 1817 leaves the gap blank, the last William BATCHELOR 1834 -1837 puts a line through the words but the third Francis COLE 1819 -1833 starts with 'parents' in his first one, then goes on to 'all parties' & then 'friends' in about 75% of the entries. Where no entry is made I'm not sure that the handwriting is the same. Either way I think this shows Francis COLE's unfamiliarity with what was required rather than any relevance to the couple marrying.

[Nell]

I'll have to double check that. Curious!

[Nell]

I've double-checked the image for my gt x 3 grandparents' marriage and you're right Oakum! I hadn't spotted it was pre-printed, I suppose the curate thought he ought to fill it in!