BRISTOL MARRIAGE LICENCE BONDS: 1701-1710 Chronological Index & Name Index Roger Price 2014 ACKNOWLEDGMENT: I must express my grateful thanks to the staff of the Bristol Record Office for their kindness and assistance when the manuscript transcriptions were photographed for study at home: which meant that preparing this index became a feasible (if lengthy) task. I am also grateful to them for allowing some of my photographs to be copied here. The role of earlier researchers in making preliminary transcriptions of some of the bonds is acknowledged in the text. It is unlikely that I would have embarked on this study without the benefit of their achievements. I am also indebted to my friend and former colleague Eric Boore for his advice on matters relating to the Church of St Augustine the Less, the Cathedral and the Bishop’s Chapel. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 3 - 7 ABBREVIATIONS & CONVENTIONS 8 CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX OF MARRIAGE BONDS 9 - 156 NAME INDEX OF ALL PERSONS 157 – 211 INTRODUCTION Thousands of licence bonds survive for marriages that took place in the Bristol region during the 17th-19th centuries. They were kept at the Consistory Court of the Bishop of Bristol until 1951, when they were passed to the Bristol Record Office for expert care (BRO Series EP/J/3). Most of them are now available for examination on microfiches at BRO. Those bonds that were issued from 1637–1700 were transcribed and published by Denzil Hollis and Elizabeth Ralph in 1952: Hollis, D & Ralph, E (eds.), 1952. Marriage bonds for the diocese of Bristol, 1637-1700, excluding the Archdeaconry of Dorset. Bristol: Bristol & Gloucestershire Archaeology Society (Records Section). The present work follows on from Hollis & Ralph’s account, and deals with the 1235 surviving bonds for the period 1701-1710. I must confess that when I first assembled this study, I inadvertently omitted one of the bonds (mea culpa!). However, when I corrected my mistake I found it too burdensome, as well as too open to further error, to have to alter all subsequent numbers: therefore, I opted to put it in the form Bond No. 517a – which explains why my sequence only goes up to 1234. In this work, I have rearranged the bonds into their correct (I hope!) chronological order. The section on abbreviations and conventions should also be consulted for further explanation. The layout used here to present the information is: Line 1 The date when the bond was issued; followed (in brackets) by the number of the bond assigned by others. Then, at the far right-hand side (in bold type), the number assigned by me for the purposes of this project. Line 2 The name of the groom (in bold type); followed by any comment that may have been made as to whether he was a widower or bachelor, or his approximate age (such as ‘21+’ or ‘c21’); then his place of residence and trade or social position (such as gentleman) if those details are extant. Line 3 The name of the bride (in bold type); followed by any comment that may have been made as to whether she was a widow or spinster, or her approximate age; then her place of residence. Line 4 The name (in italics) of the bondsman (occasionally there was more than one, and there are a few cases of women acting in that capacity); followed by the bondsman’s place of residence and trade or social standing. Line 5 The name of the church (or churches) at which the ceremony was licensed to take place. Line 6 Any known details of the actual marriage if it has been found in the parish registers (set in curly brackets & bold type). If the marriage has not been identified a note is inserted in square brackets. A comment is made if there is any reason to suppose that the marriage may have been entered in a missing or otherwise unavailable register or BT. My research was made much easier by having access at BRO to the partial transcriptions that were made many years ago by Edward Alexander Fry. In his notes, Fry assigned a number to each bond, and those are still useful to anyone who wishes to examine the microfiche copy of any particular bond: but it should be noted that he did not take account of the change in 1752 of New Year’s Day from 25 March to 1 January; which means that some of his numbering was out of sequence. There were also some other inconsistencies in his ordering; but nothing of huge importance. A special mention should be made of the important contribution of John R Holman; who in 1973 extended Fry’s work by adding other information contained on the bonds such as places of residence and trades, and he included details of the bondsmen. Further, R Withers produced typed lists of Fry’s transcriptions, but he omitted many details and produced no index. All those preliminary accounts form the basis of this study: indeed, without them it would probably have been too onerous a task for me to have made much progress within a reasonable timescale and I would probably not have taken up the project. Courtesy: Bristol Record Office Courtesy: Bristol Record Office PAGE FROM FRY’S TRANSCRIPTION OF 1705 LICENCES PAGE FROM FRY’S TRANSCRIPTION OF 1701 LICENCES (WITHOUT ADDITIONAL NOTES) (WITH HOLMAN’S ADDED NOTES) It should be noted that no bonds are known to have survived for the years 1704 and 1710 (although we do have some that were issued after 31 December up to 24 March in the years 1703/4 and 1709/10). Fry and others commented on the fragile and much decayed condition of many of the bonds: over the centuries, they have been open to attack by damp, mice, insects and other pests; which has led to mould-growth, faded ink, and parts having been chewed or rotted away. Their parlous state meant that the bonds for 1705-1706 were not sufficiently robust for them to be photographed and made available for study on microfiche. Moreover, many of the bonds for the year 1707 were not filmed. Another unfortunate consequence of the bonds’ poor condition is that they are not now able to be made available for direct examination by researchers. On top of all this, a good many of the microfiche images are faint and difficult to read with confidence. For those reasons, in a number of cases I have had to rely almost entirely on the transcriptions made by the earlier researchers. As far as I can judge from my comparison of available material, their work was for the most part accurate; but there were inevitably occasional errors (easy to say with the benefit of hindsight). In my index, any doubtful readings, or comments on details that were omitted or lost because of decay, are put in square brackets [ ] or [ ]. As far as was practical, all christian names are rendered in their usual modern spellings; but if there was any reasonable doubt they are put as in the original. Following usual practice, the original spellings of all surnames have been retained (although an initial ‘ff’ is put as ‘F’). In cases where the groom or bondsman signed the bond, his usage is preferred. Note that the bride was not required to sign, and the signatures or marks of the groom or the bondsman were sometimes omitted altogether. If an ‘x’ is inserted between the christian name and surname, it signifies that the person did not sign the bond. It may be that the person was not offered the opportunity to sign, or chose not to do so for personal reasons. Unless stated otherwise, it may be assumed that the parishes and villages where people resided are in or around Bristol: thus, ‘of St James’ means that the person resided in the parish of St James in Bristol. Others lived quite a long way from the city. Wherever it has proved possible, the names of villages, especially those in Wales, are rendered according to their standard modern spellings (eg Llangybi for Langibbe; Llansantffraed for Lansomfreed; Darley for Dorley, etc). If it was not possible to be reasonably confident of the identification of the place of residence, the details were left as written on the licence bond – and put in square brackets to indicate that doubt. Courtesy: Bristol Record Office Courtesy: Bristol Record Office MARRIAGE LICENCE BOND No 1, 26 Mar 1701: BENJAMIN DIER TO ANNE BUSHELL DYER & BUSHELL MARRIAGE IN STOKE GIFFORD REGISTER I have attempted to identify the entries of the actual marriages themselves in the corresponding parish registers. The exercise has been reasonably successful; but for obvious reasons I have not been able to examine all details of all registers. Perhaps that matter can be addressed at some time in the future and the Index may be amended. The marriage registers show that most marriages took place either on the same day that the licence was issued or within a couple of days of that. Occasionally there was a longer delay: for example, Bond No 507 records that Obadiah Webb and Joyce Price were granted a licence on 26 February 1703/4 to marry at Westbury-on-Trym or Almondsbury; but for some reason they waited a little over 2 years and 4 months before marrying on 4 July 1706 at Almondsbury. There are various possible reasons for not having found every marriage, in addition to error on my part. As others have rightly advised, the existence of a marriage bond should not be taken as a guarantee that the marriage actually took place.