MARRIAGES - ST PHILLIPS SYDNEY

 
 
During this decade there were 805 marriages performed at St Phillips, 233 
more than the previous decade, the parish (the oldest in the colony) continuing 
to be the busiest and Reverend Cowper its hardest working chaplain. On average 
almost 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
 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.
 
At least in the case of the brides, by noting the information in the "with 
the consent  of" field, "the governor/master" or "parents/father/guardians" 
at least indicates if she was free, convict or colonial born.
 
The Rev. Cowper also meticulously routinely recorded the occupation 
of the groom (one of only two ministers  to record this) and the marital status 
of the parties (batchelor/spinster, widow/widower).
 
Looking at the occupation data for the parish it is apparent that very few of 
the grooms fell into the 'unskilled' categories, they certainly were not at the 
bottom of the social strata of colonial society with only 18 grooms giving their 
occupation as 'labourer' and only 11 as 'servant'.
 
Unfortunately from 1826 the records copied onto microfilm are only 
transcripts of the original register which have  not been microfilmed. Like 
all transcription processes it leaves itself open to error. It is also possible 
that the originals may have held more information. 
 
With regard to the grooms 375 (47%) have been identified and the brides 419 
(52%)  have been identified. The consent of the Governor was required in 
284 cases (35%). This low percentage of convict marriages (one of the lowest 
in the colony) reflects the high social standing of the parish.
 
The Rev William Cowper continued his long chaplaincy during the decade and 
was one of the hardest working chaplains, for instance in 1837 he performed 107 
marriages (two per week). Of interest is the fact that he himself was married 
in his own church by the Rev.Samuel Marsden in 1836.
 
The Rev Cowper was only rarely assisted by other chaplains, although it 
must be noted that Archdeacon (later Bishop) Broughton occasionally married 
more prominent personages.
 
The Reference Number would direct the reader to the entry in the original parish 
register. In this decade the numbers start from K265 (jumping from J111 at 
the end of 1830) and run to K554 by the end of 1834, then initialized to 
L001 in 1835 and re-initialized in 1839 to M001 (the numbers M062 to M065 
are either missing or skippe over) reaching to M166 by the end of the decade.
 
There were five marriages in the State Archives Pioneer Series file which 
have no entry on this parish register. It is very likely that most of 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 "SPS" 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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