Hardwicke's Marriage Act of 1753

Hardwicke's Marriage Act 1753 was also titled ‘An Act for the better preventing of Clandestine Marriages’ and was the first statutory legislation in England and Wales to require a formal ceremony of marriage and to require that formal ceremony to be conducted in the Church of England Parish Church. It was also a requirement of Hardwicke's Marriage Act that the union was registered by a parson.

During the 1740s, out of the approximately 47,000 marriages taking place in England, 6,000 took place outside of a parish church, and so it was felt that marriages should be regulated in order to prevent so many clandestine marriages from taking place.

Prior to Hardwicke's Marriage Act, the canon law of the Church of England stipulated that banns should be called (which gave people the opportunity to raise objections to the marriage) or a marriage licence should be obtained before a marriage took place.  Obtaining a marriage licence meant banns did not need to be called.  It is worth noting that prior to the 1753 Act this was not compulsory and a marriage was still considered valid even if it was not celebrated in church.  

The Act came into force on 25th March 1754 and was read out in churches and chapels on Sundays in 1753, 1754 and 1755 because a lot of people could not read or write. 

The main points of Hardwickes Marriage Act 1753

• Before a couple could get married, banns had to be read out on three consecutive Sundays or a marriage licence had to be obtained.
• If a person was under the age of 21, they required parental consent before they could legally marry
• Marriages should be recorded in separate books which had numbered and ruled pages so that no fraudulent entries could be made to the register.
• The entry should be signed by the minister, the couple and two witnesses.

If your ancestors were nonconformists (Methodists, Baptists, etc) they had to marry in a Church of England ceremony or their marriage would not be recognized legally and their children considered illegitimate.  Quakers and Jews were exempt from this ruling and could marry in their own places of worship.  Members of the British Royal Family were also exempt.  

If a member of the clergy was found to be breaking the Act’s new law, they could be sentenced to transportation for 14 years.

The stipulations laid down by Hardwicke's Marriage Act 1753 meant that many couples chose to marry in Gretna Green or other places in Scotland in order to get around the Act.  The law was different in Scotland where couples only had to declare their intent to marry in the presence of two witnesses. This loophole was not closed in Scotland until the Act of 1856 which that declared that a couple could not marry in Gretna Green (or elsewhere in Scotland) unless they had resided in the country for three weeks prior to the date of the marriage.

Hardwicke's Marriage Act was repealed in 1849.