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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