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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