Colonial marriages and suitable matches
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Colonial marriages and suitable matches
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Contents
- Lawful marriage, stability of the Colony
Guides content
- Female Factory, Parramatta
- Convicts and Convict Administration Guide
- Births, Deaths & Marriages Registers, 1787-1856
- Births, Deaths and Marriages Guide
- Convict Certificates of Freedom
- Divorce Records Guide
- Convict penal settlements
- Family History Guide
- Families of convicts
- Convicts Guide
Indexes content
- Convict Assignments
- Convicts Applications to Marry
Learn from Home
This webinar examines marriage and divorce records in the NSW State archives collection.
Webinar: Sources for Marriage in NSW
This webinar explains how to start convict research in NSW using the NSW State archives.
Webinar: Tracing NSW Convicts
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Lawful marriage, stability of the Colony
The Colony of NSW had been established with the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788. When
Lachlan Macquarie
arrived two decades later as the fifth Governor of NSW, the future of the Colony was considered to be at risk of moral degeneration. Cohabitation—the practice of living together in an unmarried state—was deemed ‘highly injurious to the interests of Society’, and Macquarie sought to rectify this by encouraging lawful marriage.
During Lachlan Macquarie’s governorship of NSW (1810-1821), marriage was encouraged. For the convict classes this was carefully controlled by the State. The belief was that children born of convicts might be ‘infected’ by the ‘convict stain’. Given that the convict classes made up three-quarters of the registered adult population, authorities feared that the next generation would be morally tarred: a situation which threatened to destabilise the Colony. Convicts, therefore, were required to have the explicit permission of the Governor to marry the person of their choice. These controls were tightened under Governor Ralph Darling (1825-1831). Now, a convict’s master or mistress plus a clergyman, had to approve a marriage prior to an application being made to the Governor. In many instances, permission was refused.
On this page
- Convicts: Permission to marry refused
- Convicts: Approved applications to marry
- Marriage Banns
- Free men and women
Convicts: Permission to marry refused
The period 20 October to 28 December 1831 provides a useful snap shot. Twenty-two couples were refused permission to marry. The most common reason was ‘the female being already married’. Married women, it was thought, were better treated in the Colony, so some women falsely declared themselves married when disembarking in Sydney. When they did eventually seek permission to wed, they were refused.
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Convicts: Approved applications to marry
While permission to marry was refused to some applicants, others were successful. For example, between 13 May and 23 June 1828, permission to marry was granted to 24 couples. The youngest applicant was 17 year old Elizabeth Parker (per Harmony), and the oldest, 51 year old Thomas Cox (per Asia [1]). Most applicants had been sentenced to seven years transportation. Some had received life sentences. Those still bonded to a master or mistress had to remain in service until free.
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Marriage Banns
The seven year transportation sentence caused some confusion for applicants and administrators. Transportation to NSW meant forced separation for thousands of couples. An absence from a spouse for seven years—the length of most sentences—it was believed, entitled one to remarry. The Solicitor General advised in 1841 that such parties married at their own ‘peril’. After all, a first wife or husband could still be living, and therefore, couples risked a charge of bigamy.
Once the Governor had granted permission, forthcoming marriages were publicised through ‘marriage banns’. A clergyman would announce the union on three occasions, providing the opportunity for anyone who opposed the match to come forward.
Two couples, Thomas Brooks/Mary Ward, and Thomas Badham/Elizabeth Rogers, expected to have their unions publicised through marriage banns at St Philip’s, Sydney, in September 1832. Each of the four had been given good character references and clergyman, William Cowper, had granted approval.
The State, however, dismissed the Badham/Rogers application. Elizabeth had listed herself as ‘married’ when arriving in the Colony, now she was claiming to be widowed. A letter from Elizabeth’s aunt, Mrs Vanderburg notifying the young woman that her London-based husband was ‘no longer’—thus confirming her status as a widow—was rejected as a falsehood by authorities. This was unsurprising given that aunt Vanderburg’s letter from ‘London’ had, in fact, been postmarked in Sydney. Undeterred, the couple soon reapplied, and were married six months later at St Luke’s, Liverpool.
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Free men and women
Unlike the convict classes, free men and women did not have to seek permission to marry. But their numbers were few in early colonial NSW, and it was cohabitation rather than marriage, that defined the majority of unions between men and women. Free couples could obtain a marriage licence. Sometimes a special licence had to be secured. If, for example, a woman was an ‘infant’—under the age of 16 years—then her father’s consent to the marriage was required prior to the issuing of the licence.
It was not until the end of the penal era and the rise of the free settler society in the mid-19th Century that the institution of marriage became the norm in NSW. There was ambiguity around whether marriages solemnised outside the Church of England were legally valid. A series of reforms between 1834 and 1855 confirmed the validity of marriages solemnised through the ‘Churches of Scotland and Rome’. Later, this was extended to Jews and Quakers.
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Content first published in the Marriage: Love and Lawexhibition catalogue
Female Factory, Parramatta
The majority of women convicts were engaged in the manufacture of wool and linen at the Female Factory. A smaller number were employed as hospital nurses and midwives, as servants to officers, and in caring for orphans. This guide provides a brief historical overview of the Female Factory and a list of the main record series.
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Convicts and Convict Administration Guide
This guide provides an entry into a unique collection of records, created by both the British Government and the Colonial administration, covering the period 1788-1842 (plus the 'convict exiles' from the later 1840s and 1850s) that documents the 'convict careers' of these men and women.
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Births, Deaths & Marriages Registers, 1787-1856
This guide provides a list of the Registers of Births, Deaths and Marriages, 1787-1856. The records are Open to Public Access (OPA).
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Births, Deaths and Marriages Guide
Are you looking for BDMs?
For copies of birth, death and marriage certificates registered in NSW and NSW historical BDM indexes you need to visit the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages website. It provides access to online historical indexes: NSW Births that are over 100 years old, NSW Deaths that are over 30 years old, and NSW Marriages that are over 50 years old.
For historical information and other sources on baptisms, deaths and marriages, this guide may be of interest.
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Convict Certificates of Freedom
A certificate of freedom was a document stating that a convict's sentence had been served.
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Divorce Records Guide
A brief overview of the major sources in our collection that relate to divorce and procedures for accessing Divorce Case Papers (Open to Public Access after 30 years).
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Convict penal settlements
Penal settlements were places of incarceration and punishment for convicts who committed serious offences after reaching New South Wales.
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Family History Guide
Remember, it is always easier to work from the present to the past when tracing your family history. A good place to start is with yourself: write down your date of birth and then other important dates such when you were married and when your children were born. Continue recording this basic information working back through the generations, your parents, grandparents, great grandparents...
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Families of convicts
Families of convicts sometimes accompanied their convict relations or came out later. Marriages in the Colony were encouraged, the authorities believing family life served moral ends and brought stability to society. Various inducements such as tickets of leave, pardons and assistance with establishing households were offered.
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Convicts Guide
Between 1788 and 1842 about 80,000 convicts were transported to New South Wales. Of these, approximately 85% were men and 15% were women. Almost two thirds of convicts were English (along with a small number of Scottish and Welsh), with the Irish making up the remaining one third. Convicts were usually given sentences of transportation for seven, 14 years or life. Some convicts in the 1830s received ten-year sentences. About one quarter of the convicts were sentenced to 'the term of their natural lives', and a proportion of these had reprieves from the death sentence.
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Convict Assignments
This index will be of interest to those researching the assignment of convicts for the period December 1821 to December 1825. The index records the convict’s name, ship, date of assignment, to whom assigned, residence and remarks
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Convicts Applications to Marry
Key details about the parties applying for permission to marry including: names; ages; the date of permission or refusal; ship of arrival; sentence (for the party who was the convict); whether free or bond and name of the clergy. Indexed so far - Dec 1825 to Mar 1841; Oct 1842 to Feb 1851.
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