A question came up again the other day which has always fascinated me...
Just how many irregular marriages were never formally recorded in the Register of Marriages via the Sheriff Court warrant opr other legal process? The vast majority of such marriages would have been by declaration.
It looks like it will be possible to get an approximate answer at least, since the Registrar General in his annual reports recorded the number of marriages by warrant which led to an entry in the Register of Marriages (including the geographical distribution).
The key is that a marriage by declaration became illegal in 1939, with the Act coming into force on 1st July 1940.
As yet I've only got approximate figures for 1939, when there were ca. 5,000 marriages by warrant recorded by GROS, in a total in the high 30,000s.
WWII is a problem in terms of its effect on the numbers of marriages, but, looking at averages over, say, a decade, maybe 15 years, before and after 1940, it should be possible to see the difference made by the act, and deduce an approximate figure for the number of unrecorded irregular marriages by declaration up to 1939.
David
Recording of Irregular Marriages.....
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CatrionaL
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