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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