REGISTRATION. 



777 



There were a number of chapels in privileged 

 places in London, claiming exemption from epis- 

 copal visitation, where marriages were celebrated 

 in defiance of the canon law, without publication 

 of banns. Of these, the chapel in the Fleet prison 

 acquired the most infamous notoriety. At first 

 marriages were really performed in the chapel it- 

 self, but as business increased, persons in holy 

 orders confined for debt endeavoured to earn a 

 subsistence by marrying, and it was found con- 

 venient to have other places within the rules of 

 the prison, until at last the various tavern-keepers 

 in the neighbourhood fitted up rooms in their 

 houses as chapels, some of them kept parsons on 

 their establishment at a weekly salary, and all of 

 them had individuals plying about to decoy or 

 entrap people to their chapel-shops. Various inef- 

 fectual attempts were made to put a stop to the 

 evil. In the Registration Act already mentioned, 

 6 and 7 Will. III. c. 6, a clause is introduced, de- 

 claring that " No person shall be married at any 

 place pretending to be exempt from the visitation 

 of the bishop of the diocese svithout a licence first 

 had and obtained, except the banns shall be pub- 

 lished and certified according to law," and any 

 parson, vicar, or curate celebrating such a forbid- 

 den marriage, was made liable to a penalty of 100. 

 Again, in the lOih Anne, c. 18, which is a well- 

 known Act, laying duties on paper, soap, linen, 

 &c. a clause was introduced (numbered 192) which 

 declares that " whereas great loss hath happened 

 of the duties already laid upon stamped vellum, 

 parchment, and paper, and other inconveniences 

 daily grow from clandestine marriages, for remedy 

 thereof for the future, be it enacted that every 

 parson, vicar, or curate, or other person in holy 

 orders, beneficed or not beneficed, who shall, after 

 the 24th of June 1712, marry any person in any 

 church or chapel exempt or not exempt, or in any 

 other place whatsoever, without publication of the 

 banns of matrimony," &c. were to forfeit 100, 

 and a similar penalty was made applicable to gaol- 

 ers and keepers of prisons for permitting, or con- 

 niving at, clandestine marriages. 



But these prohibitions were framed more with 

 a view to the revenue than to the moiality of the 

 case, and the celebrators of illegal marriages pro- 

 bably thought that they had as much right to their 

 income as the government. The evil increased 

 rapidly, for the law was completely evaded and set 

 at nought. There was a chapel in the parish of 

 Hampstead, called Sion Chapel, which belonged to 

 the keeper of an adjoining tavern, who, by his 

 advertisements, invited the public out to his esta- 

 blishment, where parties could be married, and 

 afterwards spend the day agreeably in his grounds. 

 There was also a chapel, called after the name of 

 the minister, Keith Chapel, at which an extraor- 

 dinary number of marriages were celebrated. This 

 was a somewhat more respectable place than the 

 Fleet. But marriages at the Fleet became an 

 enormous nuisance. An appeal case before the 

 Lords respecting the validity of a marriage was 

 the immediate ause of the introduction of lord 

 chancellor Hardwicke's bill in 1753, which con- 

 tinued in full force until the new law came into 

 operation on the 1st March 1837. 



Lord Hardwicke's bill is the 26 Geo. II. c. 53, 

 " An Act for the better preventing Clandestine 

 Marriages." By it all marriages celebrated with- 

 out licence or publication of banns were declared 

 to be null and void, and the celebrators guilty of 



felony. It also requires that a marriage, in order 

 to be valid, should be solemnized in a chuich or 

 chapel where banns had been theretofore usually 

 published. Notwithstanding the evident mischiefs 

 it was intended to cure, the bill was very unpopu- 

 lar, and met with fierce opposition. The hon. 

 Henry Fox, afterwards lord Holland, (who had 

 himself been married at the Fleet in 1744,) and 

 Charles Tovvnshend were the leading opponents of 

 the measure. Blackstone calls it an "innovation 

 upon our ancient laws and constitution." The 

 provisions of the law took effect from the 25th of 

 March, 1754, and Burn tells us, that so eager were 

 all parties to be beforehand with the law, that it 

 appears from one register-book alone, that on that 

 day no less than 217 marriages were celebrated at 

 the Fleet " which," he adds, " were the last of 

 the Fleet weddings." An attempt was made to 

 claim privilege for a chapel in the Savoy, but the 

 conviction and transportation of minister and curate 

 put an end to the practice of celebrating illegal 

 marriages. 



The clause in lord Hardwicke's Act, requiring 

 banns to be published in some church or chapel 

 where they had theretofore usually been, having 

 been strictly interpreted, went to exclude churches 

 consecrated after the passing of the act. This was 

 remedied ; but with this exception, the measure 

 remained in full force till the new act came into 

 operation on the 1st of July, 1837. 



Government, much to its credit, bought a quan- 

 tity of Fleet Marriage Registers a few years ago, 

 and deposited them in the office of the Consistory 

 Court of London. They date from 1686 to 1754. 

 Along with the registers are a number of small 

 pocket-books which were used by the Fleet par- 

 sons when they went to the different public 

 houses, and from which they used to enter the 

 marriages into the larger books. But the pocket- 

 books contain entries not to be found in the regis- 

 ters, such as marriages which were desired to be 

 kept secret, &c. Considerable difference of opin- 

 ion prevailed as to whether the Fleet Registers 

 could be received as evidence in a court of law 

 but the more prevalent opinion was, that they 

 might be received as declarations, requiring the 

 assistance of other evidence. 



It, is unnecessary to give any account of the dif- 

 ferent attempts which have been made, especially 

 since 1824, to procure an alteration of the mar- 

 riage law. The delay may be regarded as fortunate, 

 as the law has now been altered, in conjunction 

 with a general scheme of registration. Whatever 

 defects may be chargeable on the details of the two 

 measures, (which, though developed in two Acts, 

 are treated as, and legally affirmed to be, one,) 

 they constitute the first national effort in England 

 to extend to all classes, and to every kind of opin- 

 ion, an unfettered participation in the securities 

 of social life. The member of the Established 

 Church maybe married as heretofore, if he chooses ; 

 the Dissenter may be married with or without re- 

 ligious rites, as he pleases ; and both marriages are 

 equally valid in the eye of the law. The machin- 

 ery for registering Dissenting places of worship, 

 for the purpose of solemnizing marriages, is suffi- 

 ciently free and unrestricted, consistently with a 

 due provision for guarding against the evils which 

 were put an end to by lord Hardwicke's Act, 

 while it removes the obligations which were felt 

 as infringements upon the rights of conscience 

 which that Act perpetuated. And with all ob- 



