Dear Sandra and Jon You may like to consider the following suggestion: Before 1837 while Hardwickes Act was in force, marriages had to take place at the Parish Church (even non-conformist and RC ones) to be legal. After 1837, marriages could take place in any premises licensed for marriages. However, Church of England churches did not need to be licensed and I assume that that applied in Wales too, since at this time the Anglican Church was the Established Church in Wales as well as England. While this was the case, it would be up to the bishop to decide which of the churches under his authority could perform marriages, so EW could have been used for marriages if the bishop said so, either in exceptional cases, or as a general rule. This would apply in 1900. However, in 1920 the Church in Wales was disestablished (and disendowed). In other words, it lost its "official" status and it follows that it would have lost its automatic right to use its churches as locations for marriages. It also lost some funding. Licensing premises costs churches money, so as an economy measure, EW might not have been so licensed from 1920, in which case it would not have been able to hold weddings from that date. By 1937 clearly the church had been licensed by the church authorities: it became legally possible to hold weddings there again, and for the first time necessarily recording them in its own register. Perhaps by 1937 people had generally forgotten that there had ever been weddings there, and given that there was no separate register, even the priest-in-charge might have believed that there being no register prior to 1937 indicated that no weddings had ever taken place there. I doubt if any journalist would have bothered to check his sources if the priest-in-charge had told him this. These days people like us would no doubt have been down on the paper like a ton of bricks pointing out the inaccuracy, but then marriage records were not under such intense scrutiny, and only some of the locals would have realized the story was inaccurate. They presumably didn't read the paper, or couldn't care less. That is my hypothesis, any way. Best wishes Allen Williams Sale Cheshire On Wed, 2010-02-03 at 20:11 +0000, SANDRA DAVIES wrote: > Sorry that marriage date should have said 02 Oct 1900 - sorry for any confusion. > Hello Jon > > I have noted the marriage of Frederick Merriman (brother to my gt grandfather Edwin) and Edith Mary Thomas at East Williamston on 18th October 1928 - well before 1937. This has come from the Begelly registers at the Records Office in Haverfordwest. There must have been some indication in the register that the ceremony took place at East Williamston and not Begelly for me to record that. Although, if I have copied this down incorrectly I am happy to be corrected! > > Regards > Sandra > > --- On Wed, 3/2/10, Jonmein@aol.com <Jonmein@aol.com> wrote: > > Hello > > I am having an argument with a local historian about the church at East > Williamston (EW) in Pembrokeshire. Thoughts welcome on the following: > > EW was until the late 20th century part of Begelly parish. There were two > churches in the parish, that already mentioned at EW and secondly St Mary's > in Begelly itself, both at least dating from the medieval period. Begelly > parish registers do not distinguish in any way between events > (baptisms/marriages/burials) held at either of the two churches: everything is shown as > "Begelly". (There are graves at EW although these are recorded in the > Begelly burial registers). > > Here's the conundrum: a report of a wedding in the Narberth Weekly > newspaper in 1937 suggests that this wedding was the first held at EW church. This > is counter-intuitive: it must have been about 3 miles or so from the > southern end of Begelly parish around EW to St Mary's at Begelly. With a church > on the doorstep at EW it would make sense for weddings to be held there > especially as the local roads were lousy. > > I am looking for a explanation as to why EW may not have been used for > weddings pre-1937. Did churches have to be licensed with the bishop to hold > weddings in the 19th century? > > I am aware of course that non-conformist chapels had to be licensed to hold > marriages but this is a separate matter. > > Jon >