> From: Irene Marlborough > Sent: 03 March 2012 16:36 > > I'm looking at some Manchester Collegiate church marriages and have noticed > that there can be a very long gap between the banns being published and the > wedding taking place. <snip> > Are there any rules for how long this gap can be? The relevant legislation in 1788 would have been Hardwicke's Marriage Act of 1753, which makes no mention of a time limit for banns being effective. The text is on Guy Etchell's site: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~framland/acts/1753.htm Best wishes Andrew -- Andrew Millard - [email protected] Bodimeade genealogy:   http://www.dur.ac.uk/a.r.millard/genealogy/Bodimeade/ My family history:     http://www.dur.ac.uk/a.r.millard/genealogy/ GenUKI Middx + London: http://homepages.gold.ac.uk/genuki/MDX/ + ../LND/

Thanks Andrew. That's interesting. I wonder how much abuse it suffered before they tightened up on the rules. Perhaps individual clergy set their own limits. It was such a cattle market at the Collegiate Church that nobody would be likely to notice any number of transgressions of rules. Regards, Irene