Introduction

A fuller account of the incidents described in the text below can be found by following the reference in the relevant section heading. Links to these articles can be found in the table towards the bottom of column 2

From time immemorial it seems religious authorities or the state (or both to variable degrees) have imposed rules and regulations to control the activities of the common people. In this country this code is largely derived from Judeo-Christian roots and the Bible which became enshrined in Canon Law. This is particularly so with the dictats surrounding the institution of marriage including who an individual can or cannot marry, who and where such a marriage can take place and what prior information must be given. It is perhaps not surprising that where individuals have disagreed with these rules they would seek ways to avoid them.

The peasantry have had many issues to contend with during their lifetime. Each century produced conflicting religious beliefs: Protestant against Catholic; Established against Nonconformist Church; Monarchy against the Church; Monarchy against the Parliament. Add to this families frequently had large numbers of children and suffered high perinatal mortality; poverty; illegitimacy; short life span; deaths from recurrent epidemics of infectious diseases; war and civil unrest.

This article looks at three aspects of these rules occurring over time. Our website was constructed around a single source individual and new people were only added if they had a link to someone already in the database by direct descent or by marriage. It has evolved into a study of an extended family where a relationship can be shown between virtually any two individuals however distant and across unions. There are currently over 23,500 individuals and over 6,700 known marriages.

The Act of Bigamy

The act of bigamy is defined as going through a second or subsequent ceremony of marriage with another partner whilst still legally married to another. This was initially enshrined in the Bigamy Act of 1603 when the penalty for offenders was death. Over the following decades punishments changed ranging from transportation overseas, branding, fines and imprisonment. Even today the maximum penalty for a convicted bigamist is seven years in prison. Over the centuries the defence against a charge of bigamy has also changed and in Court it is up to the prosecution to prove that it has taken place. Cases of bigamy progressively increased during the second half of the nineteenth century perhaps as a reflection of the less severe penalties which were being imposed. Without the death of a spouse, a separation of a period of seven years without contact or communication and a genuine belief that the spouse has died has been accepted as extenuating circumstances. Below are listed those individuals from our database who are known or are strongly suspected to have committed bigamy. The first two were taken to Court and convicted. Given the potential for sentencing the judgment and the actual outcome is perhaps surprising. Some acts of bigamy were perpetrated by both partners after a separation as shown in the next three examples. Some took place where one or both parties fled overseas whilst others stayed to brazen it out in this country

There are traps and pitfalls awaiting any family history researcher when looking for possible examples of bigamy in their ancestors. The critical piece of evidence that is required is a second marriage certificate dated during the valid timescale. Aberrant spellings of surnames is a well-known issue in historical records. The use of false names is also known. Marriage breakdown was very common. Divorce was very difficult to obtain and where available was very expensive. Many couples broke up and simply went to live with someone else. It was not unknown for such individuals to declare themselves married, and for a certain number of years, in subsequent census returns but these are not bigamous unless a formal ceremony had taken place.

The Bigamists

1. Sarah and Owen Mackness (sister and brother); Robert Tebbutt (Article A: Column 2)

The Mackness siblings are only tangentially associated with this extended family tree. Mary Ann, the daughter of James and Elizabeth Tilley, was born in 1839. She married Robert Tebbutt in Stamford in the summer of 1861. They had seven children before Mary Ann died of tuberculosis in December 1873. After her death Robert took in Rebecca Roberts as a housekeeper. Although they did not marry they had two children and emigrated to New Zealand. Robert died there in 1901

Robert had previously been married to Sarah Mackness in Rushden, Northamptonshire in 1855 but the couple had drifted apart by 1860. No evidence of a divorce has been found. By 1861 Sarah was living in London with shoemaker Joseph Bryan. Declaring herself a widow, they were married in Bethnal Green in 1871. Sarah then married blacksmith James George Allen in 1881. James probably died before the turn of the century after which Sarah entered into a fourth marriage to William Lack, a butcher from Raunds, Northamptonshire, in February 1900. She died in Northampton in 1902.

Also of interest was Sarah's older brother Owen Mackness. He appeared before Northampton Assizes in January 1886 on two counts of bigamy: the first for marrying Charlotte Cooper in July 1873, the second for marrying Mary Hopkins in July 1885 whilst his wife, Rhoda Desborough, whom he had married in June 1858, was still alive. There was a long and detailed summing up by the judge as to why one count was time expired and for the other Owen was sentenced to one day in prison. (There is a full report from the trial in the newspaper article quoted in Article A:).

2. Ada Louisa Morton (Article B: Column 1)

Ada Morton, married Robert William, the son of Fuller Sturman and Henrietta Claypole, near Sheffield in July 1895. He was enlisted with the 2nd Battalion, the Lincolnshire Regiment and when the 2nd Boer War broke out in 1900 he became part of the South African Field Force. His squadron was captured and he remained abroad until 1904. Relations with Ada had cooled and she moved to Lancashire. When there she became acquainted with and subsequently married boot maker Patrick Moran. She was taken before Bolton Borough Court charged with bigamy, found guilty and sentenced to two days imprisonment. (There is a report from the trial in Article B:). Ada subsequently emigrated to America. Robert went to live with another woman in Sheffield although they never married. He died in 1931.

3. Francis John Tilley and Emmazella Thompson (Article C: Column 1 and 2)

Francis John, born in 1839, was the son of Joseph and Jane Tilley. He married Elizabeth Tomkins in Weston by Welland, Northamptonshire in July 1861. The union was destined to last only a few weeks as Francis discovered his wife had "played him false and had a fancy man". Almost immediately he left her, enlisted in the Army and was stationed in Pembroke Dock, South Wales. There was no divorce. At the end of the decade he emigrated to America where he married Emmazella Thompson in July 1887. Emmazella had also been previously married (in March 1875) but had separated from her husband by 1880. Francis died in 1905; Emmazella in 1925.

4. Sarah Elizabeth Claypole and Albert Edward Whittle Peet (Article D: Column 2)

Sarah was the eldest daughter of Thomas Claypole and his second wife Matilda Abbott, born in 1860. She married Albert Ivett in Manchester in 1884 and after five children he died of tuberculosis in 1896. She moved to Nottingham where she married Albert Peet. It is unclear how long this liaison lasted for by the turn of the century Sarah was back in Northamptonshire where she gave birth to a baby boy in June 1898 and Albert had married again in Peterborough in March 1900. His new wife died in childbirth in July the same year. Sarah in the meantime had taken up with Arthur Nutt, a shoe manufacturer, who was the widower of Mary Elizabeth Claypole, one of Sarah's first cousins. Mary Elizabeth had been an invalid for some years and died in 1905. Sarah and Arthur moved first to Bedford and then to Leigh-on-Sea, Essex.

Sarah's son, named Thomas Albert Peet, enlisted and served in France during the first World War. He developed a cancer of the intestine and died in June 1919. Much later DNA analysis has confirmed that Thomas was in fact Arthur Nutt's son. Sarah died in Essex in 1942. Albert Peet left the Midlands and set up home in London in the 1900s with a Bessie Budgen. They eventually married in Finsbury in the spring of 1935. Albert died in 1939.

5. Frank Jackson and Wanda Lubomirski (Article E: Column 3)

The following is a curious saga of wedlock in war torn Europe. Frank Jackson was born on the northern Scottish island of Stronsay in 1919. It seems he was captured on active service during the second World War and by the beginning of 1945 he was in Poland. While there he married Polish girl Wanda Lubomirski. Wanda had already been briefly married which ended in divorce. Their marriage was shortlived and when they had returned to London, she claimed that she had only been "nominally married" to escape hostilities and leave the country. Wanda moved in with hotel receptionist Jan Krasinski and went on to change her name to his by deed poll. They married in Westminster in August 1949. The family emigrated to America where this marriage also ended in divorce. She married for a fourth time in 1965 and finally died in September 1983.

In the meantime, Frank returned to northern Scotland. After several months of convalescence he became a van driver. He married Lizzie Scott, a divorcee from Orkney in 1966. He died in hospital in 1971.

6. Mary Ann Edgley / Litchfield (Article F: Column 1 and 2)

Mary Ann Edgley was born in 1836, the eldest of the five daughters of John Edgley and Sarah Maria Jeffs. She married John Litchfield in Ashley Northamptonshire in 1852. John left for America in 1858 and the following year Mary Ann gave birth to a daughter labelled illegitimate in the baptismal records. The reputed father was Thomas Tilley of Thorpe Langton who she married in Leicester in January 1860. The couple subsequently produced three daughters and four sons. They remained together into the next century, Mary Ann dying in 1904. Nothing more is known of John Litchfield.

7. Joseph Warren Tilley (Article C: Column 1 - 2)

Joseph Warren, the son of William and Hannah Tilley, born in Thorpe Langton Leicestershire in 1845, was a second cousin to Francis John Tilley. A railway porter and engineer by trade he married Fanny Payn in Lewisham, London in 1867. They spent a couple of years together and had two children in Somerset before Joseph deserted his family. He returned to Northampton where he took up with Annie Maria Neal. They emigrated to Queensland, Australia and they married there the day after they arrived on November 15th 1883. Three sons followed. Annie died in April 1895. Joseph became something of a recluse and ultimately committed suicide in September 1909.

8. Betsy Maria Chamberlain (Article B: Column 2)

Betsy Maria was the daughter of Sarah Claypole and Robert Chamberlain. It is known that she married Walter Minkley in Wigston, Leicestershire in December 1895. After the birth of two sons and before the turn of the century the family appears to have split. In 1911 Walter was living with a woman he described as a housekeeper and who had a four year old daughter by him. It appears that Betsy, as Bessie Maria had emigrated to Canada where she married shoe maker Harry Wiggins. Some confirmatory evidence was provided by her brother during a visit during the 1920s. Although it cannot be positively confirmed the scenario probably represents a case of marital desertion and a bigamous remarriage.

9. William Beadsworth (Article G Column 2)

William Beadsworth was the fourth and youngest son of Isaac Beadsworth and Sophia Wise, born in Leicester in 1852. He started a relationship with Mary Makepeace, a girl from the St Margaret's district in the town in the 1870s. Immediately after she presented him with a son, they married in May 1873. The couple separated and he took up with an Elizabeth Slater. They were to have six children, although two died young. In 1911, still living in Leicester, William declared that they had been married for 40 years. He died in 1922.

10. George Biddall (Article H: Column 2)

This was perhaps the most tragic episode which involved the sisters Mary Ann (born 1865) and Matilda Pollard. Mary Ann's husband, David Craxford, died young and five of her seven babies died in or soon after childbirth. She ended her days in a mental instituation. Younger sister Matilda (born 1872) married military bandsman George Biddall Freeman in Leicester in September 1896. She had three children, two of which died soon after birth. George left Matilda sometime in 1901, presumably to fight in the Boer War. Matilda too was committed to an asylum. She never saw him again and died in the institution in 1931. George returned to England and entered into a marriage with Ruth Pearson in Darlington in 1907. He continued touring as a drummer and abandoned Ruth in 1930. He died in Blackpool in 1956.

One other sad side effect of this was that several of their surviving young children were also taken into care. Before the start of the first World War a number of these children were enrolled in the Middlemore Home Children's scheme and repatriated and resettled with families in Canada.

11. Alice Evangeline Craxford (Article I: Column 1)

Alice, the daughter of William and Mary Ann Craxford, was born in 1886. Her marriage to Alfred Giles who she wed in 1889 was both tempestuous and confusing. Overall she had eight children, four dying in infancy. She and Alfred were apart by the turn of the century but she had two more children registered in her husband's name in the early 1900s. Both parties were in new relationships by the time of the 1911 census. Alice was to marry again twice, bigamously. The first, to Evan Williams in February 1912 ended tragically within five months when he collapsed and died with chest pain and a ruptured aneurysm. She married again to Charles Burrows in December 1914. Charles died in London in 1933. Alice survived until the years of the sercond World War.

Alfred lived on with his second partner, Zillah Jane Hoare, in London until his death in 1949. They had three daughters but were never married.

Historic offenders

An earlier group of individuals fell foul of laws relating to marriage and relationships. In the seventeenth century the regulations surrounding the custom and practice of marriage were defined by the Church. Pronouncements in 1597 and 1604 Canon Law stated that the marriage had to take place in the church of one of the parties preceded by the granting of a licence or the reading of Banns. Marriages conducted in churches or chapels outside this ordinance were called clandestine or illicit. Victims of these "non-Canonical" marriages were summoned before the local ecclesiastical court where the union could (would) be declared invalid.

The Lord Hardwick Marriage Act of 1753 ended the practice of clandestine marriage by requiring all couples, except for Jews and Quakers, to marry in the Anglican church after the publication of banns or by obtaining a marriage licence.

12. Isaac Anker et al (Article J: Column 1 - 2)

Isaac Anker, born in Huntingdonshire in the 1650s, was a descendant of Huguenot immigrants who left the Low Countries. With his partner and two other couples they were summoned before the ecclesiastical court at Buckden on February 8th 1682 charged with "long term cohabitation of husband and wife with no lawful matrimony before their preceding cohabitation." Later that year the ecclesiastical authorities learned that two of these couples had secretly married but without a lawful licence or without Banns being read. They were called before the court again on September 6th 1683.

Continued in column 2...

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Added: February 28th 2022

Marriage to dead spouse's sibling

Canon Law was not only concerned with bigamy but also in the prohibitition of marriages between individuals with a variety of degrees of connection. These were enshrined in the Book of Common Prayer in the Table of Kindred and Affinity (1). These include such relationships as a man's mother or daughter or a woman's uncle or nephew. It also included the prohibition of a man marrying his dead wife's sister and a woman marrying her dead husband's brother. The Marriage Act of 1835 enshrined these prohibition into state law. Attempts to overturn this Act were tried throughout the Victorian era and there was much resentment amongst the general population when these unions were prevented. Although marriages of this nature were technically illegal but not criminal after 1835 they were deemed voidable if challenged. It was noted in a House of Commons debate in 1847 that "as to the lower orders of society ... during this inquiry I did not meet one man or woman in humble life who considered marriage with a deceased wife's sister improper" (2). Though forbidden by ecclesiastical law, a marriage within the prohibited degrees sometimes did take place - assuming a member of the clergy was willing to marry them. It was generally accepted that in the event of a wife's death, it was often a wife's sister who was the nearest and most convenient person to carry on looking after any children of the family.

After many years and many debates, Parliament finally passed the Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Act in 1907 (3) which allowed men that right without fear of the union being declared void. It was not until 1921 that women were afforded the same consideration with the passing of the Deceased Brother's Widow's Marriage Act (4). Much of the impetus for the passing of this bill was the huge number of young widows of soldiers killed during the years of the first World War with very young children to look after and little means of support.

The participants

13. John Knight to Mary and Sarah Craxford

John Knight was born in Gretton, Northamptonshire about 1750. He was to marry sisters Mary and Sarah Craxford, both at the parish church of St James the Great in the village. Older sister Mary, born in 1748 was first on November 16th 1770. She died in early January 1773. Sarah, also born in 1750, followed on September 25th 1775. The couple had four known sons and four daughters over the next fourteen years. Sarah died on March 6th 1790. John married for a third time to Mary Chapman - not a known relation. He died in October 1810.

14. Richard Waterfield to Mary and Rebecca Bates

Richard, born in Great Easton Leicestershire in 1753, was one of the six known children of Richard Waterfield and Eliza Knowles. He married Mary Bates at St Andrews Church in the village on April 4th 1774. Sadly the union lasted only three years and Mary died in October 1777. Eighteen months later on May 24th 1779, Richard, noted to be a widower, married younger sister Rebecca Bates by Banns in the same church. They were to have six known children. Rebecca lived until 1839.

15. Nathaniel Craxford to Ann and Jane Binder

Nathaniel, born in Gretton in 1770 was the fourth of seven sons of William Craxford and Martha Cooper. He married older sister Ann Binder from Weldon in Northamptonshire at the Church of St James the Great on October 21st 1792. The couple lived together until Ann's death in May 1829. He then married younger sister Jane Binder on May 29th 1830. The marriage was by Banns at the Church of St Peter and St Paul in Uppingham, Rutland. Jane lived just four more years and died on March 30th 1834. Nathaniel married for a third time on August 26th 1837 to unrelated Elizabeth Stokes. He died on April 3rd 1841 and was buried in Gretton.

16. Ann Boon to William and Alfred Morris

Ann, who was born in 1836, was the only daughter and eldest child of seven of William Tee Boon and Elizabeth Price of Gretton. She married land owner William Morris, also of Gretton, on July 25th 1861 at the Church of St James the Great. He died in the early months of 1873. The following year Ann married Alfred, William's younger brother at the Church of St Mary de Castro, Leicester after Banns, on June 23rd 1826. They both gave Middle Street, Leicester, as their accommodation address at the time of the service. Alfred, a clerk, was a widower whose wife had died the previous year in London. The couple returned to Gretton to live out the remainder of their lives: Alfred dying in 1905; Ann in 1912.

17. Frederick Swailes to Eliza and Sarah Beadsworth (Article G: Column 1)

Eliza, born in 1845, and Sarah born in 1848 both in Leicester, were two of the daughters of Isaac Beadsworth and Sophia Wise. They had four boys and five girls in all. Eliza was the first to marry, to shoe maker Frederick Mee at All Saints Church, Leicester on September 7th 1865. After four children, Frederick died on pulmonary tuberculosis in January 1873.

In the meantime, Frederick Swailes, an iron moulder, married Sarah at St Peter's Church, Leicester on December 27th 1875. She had already given birth to a stilborn baby in 1867. She died on September 11th 1888. Within a year, Frederick had married Eliza Mee. The wedding was by Banns in All Saints Church, Wigston Magna witnessed by Eliza's son Storer Mee and her married daughter Florence Jarvis. Immediately after the ceremony they returned home, next door to Sophia, Eliza's mother. Eliza finally died in Leicester in 1923; Frederick in 1929.

18. Julia Liquorish to John and Britton William Martin (Article L: Column 2)

Julia was born in 1864, the eleventh of the twelve children of William Liquorish and Lucy Craxford. She had an illegitimate daughter, Emily, in 1886 who died when she was one year old. The following year she married John Martin in Caldecott, Rutland on December 24th 1889. John had been a gunner with the Royal Artillery in India, taking part in the Afghan Campaign and was discharged home in 1887. The marriage did not last long and he died of "Indian Fever" in October 1891. By the turn of the century Julia had moved in with John's younger brother Britton in the town of Rothwell, Northamptonshire. At the time of the 1911 census, Julia declared that they had been married for ten years although to date no documentary evidence for this has been found. Julia died in May 1924 of cancer. Britton lived on until June 1949.

19. Rose Lyons to Amos and William Crane

Amos and William were the twin sons of Charles Crane and Alice Rebecca Beadsworth born on May 13th 1890 in Cottingham, Northamptonshire. Amos moved to Newmarket in Suffolk where he became a groom at a racing stables. He married seventeen year old Rose Lyons in the town on April 3rd 1912. They lived there until Amos' death in 1954.

In the meantime, brother William married Ada Swann Stapleton in Cottingham in 1920. They had seven children. After Ada died in 1946, William moved to Newmarket to join his brother. Two years after Amos' death, William and Rose were wed. William died in Newmarket in 1968; Rose in 1971.

Not bigamous but ...

The following are offered as two examples of the caution needed when preparing histories. Both have been described by various sources as bigamists but for different reasons neither were.

20. Herbert West (1874 - 1942) (Article K: Column 1)

Ellen Elizabeth, born in the village of Harringworth Northamptonshire in 1877, was the oldest daughter of Charles Liquorish and Ellen Joyce. In the 1890s she went into domestic service and moved to London. She met and married engine driver Herbert West at Trinity Wesleyan Chapel in Paddington on August 21st 1898. The confusion arises because Ellen was back home visiting her parents in Northamptonshire at the time of the 1911 census. Herbert became confused with another West of the same name and it was assumed that he had taken up railway duties and had married in the West Midlands. However Herbert and Ellen were together in Wembley at the end of the 1920s. She died in the spring of 1931. Herbert did marry again to widow Nellie Searle in November 1934 in Coalville, Leicestershire, the ceremony witnessed by Ellen's brother Robert Liquorice and his wife Flora.

21. Robert Ridley Nessworthy (1890 - 1954) (Article L: Column 1)

Robert Ridley Nessworthy, born in South Shields in 1845, has been labelled both a bigamist and two different people. He was neither. He married once, to Elizabeth Young in South Shields in May 1862. He was a shipwright working first in South Shields and then when the company expanded, on the other side of the River Tyne in North Shields. Whilst there he struck up a relationsip with Susannah Lamb Sheals. They were never married. It appears he spent his working days in North Shields and weekends in South Shields. Over time he had eleven children with Elizabeth and eight with Susannah. Confusingly many of the children were given the same names. From the geography of the place there is little doubt that the two households were aware of each other and at times were in communication. Robert died in 1910 in an institution in Hull, Yorkshire but he spent his declining decade with Elizabeth.

Footnote

Professor Probert recently conducted a study in association with family historians through the Lost Cousins genealogy netweork (5). The data was collected by a survey asking for details of bigamists who had had at least one marriage. The timescale ranged from the early eighteenth to the mid twentieth centuries. The sample included 413 who had been prosecuted for bigamy and 369 individiuals whose illegal activity went unprosecuted.

The results were published recently in Escaping detection: illegal second marriages and the crime of bigamy The Journal of Genealogy and Family History. Vol. 6 No. 1. Published January 5th 2022.

Further Reading

1: "Marriage Law for Genealogists: the definitive guide. Revised Second Edition"; Rebecca Probert (2016) Takeway Publishing, Kenilworth, Warwickshire. ISBN 978-0-9931896-2-3.
2. "Divorced, Bigamist, Bereaved? - The family historian's guide to marital breakdown, separation, widowhood and remarriage from 1600 to the 1970s"; Rebecca Probert (2015) Takeaway Publishing, Kenilworth, Warwickshire. ISBN 978-0-9931896-0-9
3. "The Changing Legal Regulation of Cohabitation: From Fornication to Family, 1600-2010"; Rebecca Probert (2012) Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-53630-2.

Rebecca Probert is Professor of Law in the Law School at the University of Exeter. She has interests in both legal history and how the law affects families. She has carried out extensive research into all aspects of cohabitation and marriage. She has written many volumes, both textbooks (books 1 and 2 above are two of several written as aids to the family historian; book 3 appears in the Law in Context series. Of particular interest to this article is the subject of bigamy. Divorce was difficult to obtain and extremely expensive in Victorian times. By definition it requires the guilty part to marry a second time knowing that the first spouse was still alive. It was fairly common for the marriage to break apart and there are several recorded occasions in our magazine pages of one party fleeing the country to marry again elsewhere in the world. The authors would like to thank Professor Probert for her helpful advice and comments in various aspects of our research.

Links to the articles mentioned in the text are in italic capitals below:

Article A: An association of the husband of Mary Ann Tilley A History of the Tilley family: Cottingham Part 1, the early generations
Article B: One wife moved to Bolton, another to Canada Claypole: from Great Easton to Kettering
Article C: Ofspring of Francis Tilley and Hannah Beldam A History of the Tilley family: Origins and alternatives 1: The Langtons, Leicestershire
Article D: Adventures in Nottingham, Finedon and Bedford Claypole - Nutt: A saga of Finedon
Article E: A "nominal" marriage in wartime The Jacksons, my Middleton family
Article F: The family of Thomas Tilley and Mary Ann Litchfield A History of the Tilley family: Origins and alternatives 2: Uppingham, Rutland
Article G: Beadsworth in Leicester Concerning the Beadsworth family in Leicester: Part 1
Article H: A bigamous bandsman The Croxton Conundrum and Other Mysteries: The Pollard Girls
Article I: Bigamy twice? Craxford: In Gretton and beyond
Article J: Cited for clandestone marriages The origins of the Anker family
Article K: A confusion of two Herberts The Gretton Craxfords: Exodus II - All sorts of Liquorish
Article L: The honest polygamist The Nessworthys of Tyneside: Chapter 3. The Beverley Brothers

References

1. A Table of Kindred and Affinity Book of Common Prayer, The Church of England to marry together
2. Could a Regency widower marry his wife's sister? in Regency History
3. Debated in Parliament Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Bill August 20th 1907 Hansard
4. Second Reading Deceased Brother's Widow's Marriage Bill June 28th 1921 Hansard 1803 - 1925
5. Lost Cousins Putting Relatives In Touch

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