MARRIAGES - CHRIST CHURCH ST LAURENCE SYDNEY

 
 
The parish of Christ Church St Laurence was established to  cater to the 
population living in the south of Sydney Town in 1838. The first  marriage  was 
performed in the new parish  on the  14  May 1838  by the Rev Thomas Steele, 
the first chaplain. Up until  the end  of 1840 there were 146 marriages performed.
 
The information recorded for each marriage is as follows:
               date
               groom 
                    family name
                    Christian name
                    year and ship of arrival
                    civil status at time of marriage
                    age at marriage
                    parish
               bride 
                    family name
                    Christian name
                    year and ship of arrival
                    civil status at time of marriage
                    age at marriage
                    parish
               consent given by
               officiating minister
               reference number
 
The marriages are listed in chronological order.
 
Post 1826 all parishes were required to record all marriages on a standardized   
printed  form,  which  contained   the   following information:  register  entry 
number, family name  and  Christian name  of both bride and groom, residant parish 
of the  bride  and groom, date of marriage, who gave consent to the marriage 
and the officiating  minister. Information recorded on the  register  but not  
included  here includes the names of the  witnesses  to  the marriage  (Interested 
readers are urged to consult  the  original register for this information).
 
It should be pointed out that 'year and ship of arrival',  'civil status at time 
of marriage' and 'age at marriage' for both  bride and groom are all "value added" 
additions researched by this  work to complement the church register. As 
explained above the age  at marriage is a derived figure.
 
The Rev. Thomas Steele was appointed first minister to the parish in  1838  but  
he only remainded one year to be  placed  by  Rev. William Walsh in 1839.
 
Occasional  mininsters  included:  Rev.Hart  Sparling,   Rev.John Duffus,  Rev.E  
A Dicken all in 1838, then Rev.William  Cowper  & Rev.John  Troughton  in  1839  
and  finally  Rev.Robert   Bolton, Rev.John Elder, Rev.W W Simpson in 1840.
 
Of  the grooms, 48 (33%) have been identified and for the  brides 52  (36%). 
The consent of the Governor was required in  30  cases (21%),  the  lowest  
percentage  of  any  parish  in  the  colony reflecting the social standing of 
St Laurence's.
 
The reference number would direct the reader to the entry in  the original  parish  
register. The numbers commenced from 1  in  May 1838  but  were initialized to 
B001 in February 1839 and  ran  to B114 by the end of the decade. 
 
There was one marriage in the State Archives Pioneer Series  file which  had  
no entry on this parish register. It is  very  likely that  this results from 
typographical errors and relates to  post 1840 marriage.
 
To  locate an entry on this list; firstly an alphabetical  search on  the name 
would be made on Lists 3 or 4 using code "SLS"  from which the date of marriage 
would be retrieved, secondly using the appropriate  date,  the marriage would 
then be  located  on  this list.


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