From the Papers

Sometimes the detail provided in the newspapers is incredible.  The article below, about the wedding of my great aunt Constance Green in 1923, provides some amazing details.

The dresses worn by the bride and her bridesmaids - who the article tells me were her sisters Nancy and May - are described in detail.  

I know they left the reception by car to catch a train to Cornwall for their honeymoon, and that the bride's travelling dress was Wedgewood blue cloth trimmed with black silk braid and a large Tuscan hat with white lilac and roses.

I know that evening the bride's parents, Mr and Mrs W. P. Green, entertained the employees and members of the choir and church band, with their wives, at a 'substantial supper'. 

Not only does the paper describe the wedding itself, but it lists each gift the bridal couple received on the occasion.

So I know that the bride gave her bridegroom a silver-mounted umbrella and a silver tankard.  The bridegroom gave his bride a diamond and sapphire ring and ostrich feathers.

Major and Mrs Wood gave a dinner service.  Mrs Pole, cut glass vinegar bottles and salt spoons.  Mrs Tremlett, candlesticks.  Miss E. Hall, a cushion.  Miss Ambrose, a photo frame.  The list goes on.

All this detail about the wedding truly fleshes out the occasion in detail I could not imagine finding anywhere else. 

Love and Marriage in Colonial Australia

1830 Wedding Dress

I have previously blogged about love and marriage for convicts – now I am moving on the free settlers in colonial times.

If both partners intending to marry were free, couples were able to obtain a marriage licence and did not need permission to marry, but cohabitation instead of marriage was still frequent.  It was not until the end of the convict era and rise of free settlers in the mid 19^th century that marriage became more frequent.  It is also worth noting that many marriages outside the Church of England were not considered valid.  A series of reforms between 1834 and 1855 confirmed the validity of marriages conducted by ‘the Churches of Scotland and Rome’, and only later was this extended to Jews and Quakers.

To encourage marriage among the colony’s free settlers, Governor Darling (Governor 1825-1831) created a marriage portions scheme for ‘daughters of men of respectability of the Colony’.  Once they were engaged or promised in marriage a daughter of a man who lacked wealth for a dowry but whose family had standing in the community could apply for a marriage portion land grant.  This land would be granted upon her marriage and would be held by the woman herself, and upon her death would pass to her children, not her husband.

This scheme promoted marriage within the free settlers, as a man was more likely to enter into marriage with a woman who had property to bring with her into the union.  In 1830 and 1831, a total of 42 women were granted a marriage portion land grant, with properties ranging in size from 60 to 1280 acres.  The scheme was problematic, however, and administration of it slow, taking up to 6 years to finalise.  The scheme, which was introduced in 1828, was finalised late in 1831, and the idea that married women could own property separate to their husbands would take 50 years to reemerge.

Love and Marriage in Convict Australia

Two decades after the colony of New South Wales was established, Governor Lachlan Macquarie considered the future of the colony to be at risk of moral degeneration.  Cohabitation, or couples living together outside the married state, was seen as ‘highly injurious to the interests of society’, and Macquarie was keen to rectify the situation by encouraging marriage amongst the population, both convict and free.

For convicts, marriage was strictly controlled by the state, and convicts required permission before they could legally marry.  During the time of Governor Ralph Darling (1825-1831), controls were tightened and a convict’s master or mistress, plus a clergyman, had to approve the marriage before the couple could apply for permission from the Governor.

In many cases permission was refused, most commonly because the woman was considered to already be married.  It had been thought that married women would be better treated in the colony, so some women convicts falsely declared themselves married when disembarking in Sydney.  When they later wanted to marry in the colony, they were refused permission.

Transportation often resulted in the separation of married couples, and it was difficult (although not impossible) for couples to reunite – either by the spouse travelling out to the colonies or the freed convict returning to Britain.  While it was held that ‘seven years separation by water’ entitled a person to remarry, doing so with the knowledge that the first spouse was still alive could result in a charge of bigamy, and the Solicitor General advised in 1841 that such couples ‘remarried at their own peril’.

Once the Governor had granted a convict permission to marry, the marriage was announced by reading the marriage banns.  A clergyman would announce the marriage three times, allowing any parties with an objection to the union time to come forward.  If no objection was made, the couple then married.  If a convict was still bonded at the time of their marriage they still had to remain in service until they were finally declared free.