MARRIAGES - ST MARYS SYDNEY
During this decade there were 1,187 marriages performed at St
Marys, on average two marriages every week.
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
occupation (years 1832,1833,1834 only)
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.
St Marys rapidly became the busiest parish in the colony because up
until the middle of this current decade it was the sole parish to cater
to the needs of the Catholic population.
Unlike the Anglican and Presbyterian chaplains, none of the
Catholic chaplains used the official printed government forms for
recording the marriages in each parish, or if they did they have not
been microfilmed.
And again unlike nearly every other parish in the colony St Marys seems
to have maintained as many as four or even five different registers
rather than having a single repository for all marriage details.
Often the different registers overlapped with the details
sometimes varying from register to register. Adding to the 'chaos'
the entries within each register are not always sequential and
chronological.
In the original register the standard information recorded was; date,
family name and Christian name of both bride and groom, the location
where the ceremony took place and the officiating minister.
Information in the register but not included here includes; names
of the witnesses to the marriage and who gave consent to the marriage.
Interested readers are urged to consult the originals.
For the three years 1832,1833 & 1834 (fortunately for future
genealogists) Father McEncroe regularly recorded the ship of
arrival of the parties, (unfortunately in too many cases) the party
could not be found on the indent of the nominated ship.
For the same three year he also occasionally recorded the
occupation of the groom.
Father Therry appears to have been the 'adventurous' chaplain,
regularly undertaking extensive travels through the more distant
parts of the colony, whilst Father McEncroe took care of the
'homefront' as it were in Sydney and surrounds. It is possible when
examining the 'parish' field in the register of Father Therry
to construct, in both place and time, the itinerary he undertook
on each of his trips.
As explained above the age at marriage is a derived figure.
Disppointingly none of the Catholic registers record the "with the
consent of" field, however for the purposes of this work, if either
or both parties were serving convicts it is assumed they needed the
Governor's consent.
The Reverend Father John Joseph Therry continued his chaplaincy of
the parish until November 1838 when he transferred to Hobart Town
in Van Diemens Land. The Reverend Father John McEncroe served
as his assistant chaplain after his arrival in 1832 until September
1838 when he transferred to Norfolk Island. Reverend Father Francis
Murphy then served the parish for the rest of the decade with Reverend
Father Henry Gregory Gregory acting as his assistant.
Several other chaplains officiated at occasional marriages during the
decade: Bishop Dr John Bede Polding one each in 1835 and 1837;
Reverend Father William Bernard Ullathorpe several in
1833,1834,1835; Reverend Father Charles Vincent Dowling in
1833,1834; Reverend Father Joseph Chares Sumner in 1836; Reverend
Father Charles Lovat 1838,1839; Reverend Edmund Mahoney 1838;
Reverend Father Patrick Bonaventure Geoghegan 1839; Reverend
Father John Thomas Lynch 1840; Reverend Father Joseph Platt 1840.
After the great free versus felon divide, the second major social and
political divide in the colony at the time was the Protestant versus
Catholic divide. In this decade there were seventy two duplciate
entries (indicated by a *) of couples of mixed religious
affiliation having a second Catholic ceremony after a Protestant one.
Fifteen of these refer to a Protestant marriage in the previous
decade although the previous marriage has not been located in eight
cases (indicated by a *?).
Father McEncroe instead of using the verb 'married' tended to use the
quaint word 'habilitated' when remarrying couples of mixed religious
affiliation.
There were three unusual duplications involving men who married two
separate and different women on the same day; Michael Doyne who on
the 3rd February 1835 is recorded as marrying Mary Carey and Mary
Owens, John Walsh who on the 12th January 1838 is recorded as
marrying Catherine Connolly & Bridget Galvin, Henry McNabb who on
the 12th June 1840 is recorded as marrying Maria Austin & Catherine
Connolly.
Thomas Wright (per 'Canada' 1801) married at the age of 94 in 1831,
the oldest so far recorded (a note in the register states he was a
'banker' in England although the 1828 Census records his occupation
as a 'baker').
On the 24th January 1838 were was the bizare case of an entry of a
'non entry' when Father McEncroe went to great lengths (a whole page)
to explain his refusal to remarry a couple and to take a none too
subtle criticism of the Anglican chaplain Reverend Robert
Cartwright (another 'shot' in the sectarian wars no doubt). It
would appear that William Kelly was still married to his first wife
and who was presumably still living (how McEncroe knew this is not
recorded) when Cartwright joined him in holy matrimony to one Mary
Ann Kelleher on the 7th September 1837 at St James Sydney (did
Cartwright know of the existence of the first wife and how did
McEncroe know he knew?).
Father McEncroe recorded another interesting but sad tale on the 31st
October 1832 of one Jane Jones. McEncroe recounts how her 'wicked'
step-father William Walsh forced Jane to marry a Leno Comber
(unfortunately to date neither Jane nor Comber have so far been
identified and no marriage to Comber can been found - did it occur
before she reached the colony?), apparently the marriage was not
happy and for the past four years Jane had been cohabitating
(living in 'sin') with Peter Brady and were now keen to have their
relationship 'habilitated'. McEncore then undertook the creative if
unorthodox theological reasoning that as Jane had not been baptized
into the Catholic church at the time of her first marriage and
as he had just done so, he was now free to marry her to Brady under
Catholic rites even though it would be clearly bigamous if Comber
were still alive!
With regard to the grooms 567 (48%) have been identified and the
brides 620 (52%) have been identified. The consent of the Governor
was required in 388 cases (33%).
The reference numbers in the various registers are often not
sequential and very chaotic so the entries have been simply
re-numbered chronologically as in the previous decade, running from
523 to 1,706.
There were twenty marriages in the State Archives Pioneer Series file
which have no entry on this parish register. It is very likely
that these result from typographical errors and relate to post 1840
marriages.
To locate an entry on this list; firstly an alphabetical search on
the name would be made on Lists 3 or 4 using code "SMS" 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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