Marriage by Registrar's Certificate or Registrar's Licence?

[AdrianBruce]

I'm trying to understand the differences between Marriage by Registrar's Certificate and Marriage by Registrar's Licence.

I found (some time ago) https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Ma ... _and_Wales which, if I read it correctly, suggests that:

• The Registrar's Certificate is issued after 21d of it being on a public notice-board;
• The Registrar's Licence is issued after 1 weekday and "virtually no publicity";
• The (quicker) Licence costs more;

There also appear to be differences about where the parties can live or be married.

If I got any of that wrong, or missed anything significant, please shout.

Question: Anybody any idea which is the most common? I'm not sure I've recorded enough detail in my database to get any idea from my own data...

[AdrianBruce]

Firstly, apologies for posting this 3 times in (not that) rapid succession - nothing happened after the "Submit" so I submitted it again.... Twice, it seems.

Secondly, it turns out that even though my database might be too hard to interpret, actually looking at the marriage certificates, isn't too hard. The most common type that I have for Register Office ceremonies is marriage by Registrar's Certificate - I have just a couple of marriages by Registrar's Licence. Any thoughts whether this is typical?

The situation is slightly confused by marriages in places like Baptist chapels where the Registrar does the legal bit - I'm sort of guessing that the terms used are the same for the chapel-type scenarios as for Register Offices but would welcome comments.

[AntonyM]

Getting married by "registrar's certificate" , or just "by certificate" was, and is, the standard civil process of giving "notice" to marry ..... by far the most common for register office weddings and also for those in non-conformist churches.

The 1836 Marriage Act did allow a Superintendent Registrar to issue a licence ( for a fee of £3) which reduced the waiting time, a similar process to marrying by licence in church to avoid waiting for the banns.

These days special licences are only available in urgent cases where one of the parties may be terminally ill.

[AdrianBruce]

Thanks Antony - a valuable perspective to know that the "certificate" is the standard civil process - and also that "These days special licences are only available in urgent cases".

[Jimbo50]

I 'm not sure if this is extra information or whether it is common knowledge. I have a 20th Dec 1807 (and another 1816), Lanlas, (Aberystwyth Parish ) register copies in my accumulations of saved pics , both are by licence.
These pre-date the 1836 Marriage Act for licences. ? How long then had they been issued before this ?
No real clues as to the reason for the licence though; My ancestors were living in Deptford London 1815(Baptism). Changed to Woolwich by 1817 (Baptism).
Husband (died 1826 aged 40) was a sawyer at the dockyard (Baptisms). The wife (born Aberystwyth) ran a dairy in Woolwich (1841 census).

[meekhcs]

Interesting Antony re the present day terms for a "special licence". Back in the day my husband and I married by special licence as we chose to marry outside our parishes. The document is beautiful, and a treasured possession.

[AdrianBruce]

... both are by licence. These pre-date the 1836 Marriage Act for licences. ? How long then had they been issued before this ? ...

Licences have been an alternative to the calling of banns for ... I presume, a very long time. Certainly FindMyPast's Cheshire Marriage Licence Bonds and Allegations 1606-1905 goes back to, well, 1606. Essentially, canon law (church law) demands certain things of marriages and marriage ceremonies - such as the calling of banns. You can get round these demands but you need authority to do so and the evidence of that authority is a licence. So if you want to not have banns called - you need a licence. If you want to get married at a time of year when normally you can't - you need a licence. (Whether or not the actual licence specifies a reason, I've no idea - we seldom see licences themselves, as what we tend to call licences are actually the applications for them, etc.)

[AdrianBruce]

And what I was going to say... I have a really hard time in trying to understand the relationship between licences issued by the church pre-1837 and licences issued by Registrars post-1837. Not sure if there is any effective difference other than who issues them or not... It's partly me being tied up in wanting to classify things.

[Guy]

There are numerious marriage licences displayed on my website at http://anguline.co.uk/cert/mar_lic.html these include :_
An example of a Archbishop's Special Marriage Licence, 1882
Bishop's Marriage Licence,(Vicars General)
Superintendant Registrar's Marriage Licence, 1872
A Marriage Licence 1826
A Marriage Licence 1816
Marriage Bonds
Registrar's Certificate
Bann's Certificate
Etc. Etc.

The above page is part of my Examples of certificates and other documents found in family history research site at
http://anguline.co.uk/cert/certificates.htm
Cheers
Guy

[AdrianBruce]

Thanks Guy - I was shocked when looking at the 1882 Archbishop's Special Marriage Licence, to see that they were still using that script that causes most of us so many problems on PCC wills....