In between researching the family history of my clients, I like to delve into my ancestry. This has resulted in several popular blog posts. So for this article, I have decided to travel back to the year 1763. During this period, George III purchased Buckingham Palace and made a Royal Proclamation limiting the expansion of the American colonies. But, I am going to focus on a particular wedding held in the East End of London. 

David Wait a carpenter of New Inn Yard, Shoreditch (c.1738-1793) and Eleanor Wait nee Rice (1737-1793) were my 5xGreat Grandparents and were married in the newly built Christ Church Spitalfields, in London’s East End on the 6th February 1763. Christ Church was one of the fifty churches urgently commissioned, with the backing of Queen Ann, through fear that the ‘godless thousands’ outside the City of London had no access to a nearby church.

I always get excited to see the signatures of my ancestors, this is often the only 'physical' thing they have left us, yet it can hold clues to the times they were living in and their personality. Today, the ability to read and write is accepted as normal. Being illiterate is regarded as shameful. During this time, literacy was considered a luxury. It would not be until the 1870s -1880s that education became compulsory. But, both David and Eleanor have signed the register confidently and with flourishes.

The parish register indicates that David Wait was from the parish of Spitalfields, but Eleanor was ‘of the Liberty of Norton Folgate’. This was land owned and originally occupied by the Priory and Hospital of St Mary Spital. Although the priory was dissolved in 1538 the area retained its status as extra-parochial liberty. Included in its particular boundary was White Lyon Yard, now Folgate Street where Eleanor and her family lived.

Eleanor Rice was baptised on the 9th March 1737 at St. Leonard’s Church, Shoreditch. Her parents were Walter Rice (1712-1749) a Glove Maker and Mary Rice nee Offin (b.1713) of White Lyon Yard, Norton Folgate. Surviving London Tax Records show that Walter Rice of Norton Folgate paid 16 shillings annually from 1743-1749.

Walter and Mary’s marriage took place in Fleet, London on 19th August 1734. Intriguingly, it was a ‘clandestine marriage’. Historians estimate that by the early 18th Century a third of all marriages were irregular or clandestine, with nearly half in London, performed at or around Fleet Prison. 

Although they complied with English Common Law and were valid, they were cheaper than a parish church wedding, did not need parental consent, banns were not read, could be held in secret and even backdated! They were banned by the Marriages Act of 1754.

So why did Walter and Mary have a ‘Fleet Wedding?

I have yet another mystery to solve.