Dead Wife’s Sister Act

Thou Shalt Not Marry….

While researching for the previous post about cousins marrying I came across a list of people it was illegal to marry in the UK. The list was originally drawn up by the Church of England in 16th century.  The list is long and can be found here.  A brief summary is that you cannot marry someone with the following relationship to you.
sibling;  parent / child;  grandchild;  aunt / uncle (blood relative or by marriage);  nephew / niece (blood relative or by marriage);  child of a former spouse;  former spouse of a parent or grandparent;  grandchildren of a former spouse.

Dead Wife’s Sister (Sister-In-Law)

While most forbidden marriages were logical, on the nineteenth century version of the list there was one inclusion that caught my eye “You cannot marry your dead wife’s sister”. This had been added to the list of forbidden marriages by a law passed in 1835. This law was  based on the fact that according to the Bible those who were related by marriage were regarded as being related to each other in a way which made marriage between them improper.

The reason I found this strange was that I knew marriages to a sister-in-law did happen in nineteenth century England and was not that rare. In the nineteeth century, it was not unusual for a woman to die in childbirth. The husband could be left with several small children to look after. The poor could not afford to pay someone to help look after the children, so often an unmarried sister or sister-in-law would move in to the home to assist in looking after her nieces and nephews. In this situation it was not uncommon for a relationship to develop between the widower and his sister-in-law and marriage occurred.

Technically this marriage between a man and his dead wife’s sister was illegal and a vicar was supposed to refuse to marry them. To get around the law the rich would travel out of the country to get married. The poor just ignored the law. Sometimes people would get married in a neighbouring parish, so the vicar wouldn’t know they were marrying illegally. In some cases a vicar may have turned a blind eye to the relationship to avoid the couple having to “live in sin”.

1907 Dead Wife’s Sister Act

The marriage between a man and his dead wife’s sister was made illegal by an act of 1835. The supporters of the law argued it was a slippery slope to incest. Their arguments based on the Bible where in Genesis it states that husband and wife "became one flesh," therefore the logic was that your wife's sister was really your own sister.

In 1842 some Members of Parliament tried to repeal the law, but they were met with fierce opposition. During the next 65 years there were several attempts to repeal the law, but the arguments continued, and it was 1907 when the law was finally changed. These marriages were finally legalised by a 1907 Act of Parliament “The Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act” allowing marriage between a widow and his dead wife’s sister. By 1907 the prohibition had long been lifted in most of Europe, the United States and the colonies.

A similar situation existed in reverse for women and it was illegal for a widow to marry her dead husband’s brother, however, this type of marriage was not legalised for another five years with the passing of “The Deceased Brother's Widow's Marriage Act 1921”.

Our Family

In our family trees I have come across two incidences of marriages between a man and his dead wife’s sister.

Titheridge Family

Ernest George Titheridge born in Droxford in 1886 married Winifred Violet Jones in 1913 at Winchester. Winifred died in 1949. In 1957 Ernest went on to marry Winfred’s sister Irene Jones in Winchester. This was a perfectly legal marriage as it is after the 1907 Act.

Titheradge Family 

James Fabian Titheradge also married sisters. James was born in Portsmouth in 1816. On 9 June 1842 he married Henrietta Ann Jamison in Portsea St Mary. James and Henrietta had 1 child James Walter Titheradge born in 1843. Henrietta died in 1846 leaving James with a three-year-old child to look after. On 24 March 1853 James married Henrietta’s sister, Dianah Frances Jamison. Between 1854 and 1861 James and Dianah had five children, three boys and two girls. James and Dianah continued to live in Portsmouth with James dying in 1877 and Dianah dying a few years later in 1884.

Titheridge Cousins

Cousin Marriages

“Is it illegal to marry your cousin?” That was the question I put to Google today. Google tells me that the answer depends on where you live. In some cultures it is illegal to marry your first cousin and in others it is an accepted practice. In the USA it varies with the state you live in; in 26 states its legal and in the remaining states illegal and in some states a criminal offence. Here, in England, and all of Europe, it is perfectly legal to marry your cousin.

There are many famous people who married their cousin. This includes Charles Darwin who married Emma Wedgwood: Albert Einstein who married Elsa Loewnthal (nee Einstein) and Queen Victoria who married her cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

So why was I so interested in this question? This is because we have two families where cousins marry. When looking through the marriage registers it is an unexpected find to see reference to someone with the unusual surname Titheridge marrying someone else called Titheridge. You know they must be related somehow, and in two cases investigation has shown the bride and groom to be cousins.

Audrey Dora Titheridge and George Harry Titheridge 

In 1919 distant cousins Audrey Dora Titheridge, daughter of Noah Titheridge, and George Harry Titheridge, son of William Henry Titheridge, married in the Droxford Area of Hampshire. Audrey’s father and George’s father were second cousins, so although Audrey and George shared the same surname they were quite distant cousins.

Richard Titheridge and Mary Ann Titheridge 

There is one case we know of when first cousins married. This is Richard Titheridge and Mary Ann Titheridge who married in 1882 in the Portsmouth area. The couple shared common grandparents Richard Titheridge and Sarah Wheeler.

Richard Titheridge (the grandfather) was originally from Cheriton, Hampshire and then moved to  Winchester, where in 1803 he married Sarah Wheeler. In 1809 the couple moved to Alverstoke. Richard and Sarah had 8 children including William born 1810 and Henry born 1813.

William married twice and with second wife Jane Hewitt had 9 children including Richard Titheridge born in 1845.

William’s brother, Henry, married Agnes Taylor and they had 9 children including Mary Ann born in 1846.

Both families lived in Alverstoke and the censuses from 1851 to 1871 show the cousins, Richard and Mary Ann, were living near each other throughout their lives. On the 1881 census 36 year old Richard was living at Alver Road and working as a shipwright. 37 year old Mary Ann was living in Forton Road with Edward, her brother. Edward was widowed at the start of  1881 and was left with 6 children aged from 8 years to a few months. Mary Ann moved in to help Edward look after the children.

It was in June 1882 that the marriage of Mary Ann Titheridge and Richard Titheridge was registered in Portsmouth. I have been unable to find their marriage in any of the parish records. In the same quarter as the marriage Mary Ann and Richard’s first child, Ida, was born. Mary Ann and Richard had five children all born in Alverstoke, the family recorded at the baptisms as living at 21 Upper South Street. The children were
• Ida Titheridge born June 1882 and died August 1882. If you wish to read more about the death of this baby follow the link to a blog already written about Ida’s death .
• William Richard Titheridge born 6 Jun 1883 and baptised at Gosport Holy Trinity on 21 December 1883. He married Ada Covington in 1921and they had three boys
• Beatrice May Titheridge born 18 July 1885 and baptised at Gosport Holy Trinity 28 August 1885. Beatrice died March 1886 when less than a year old.
• Ernest Titheridge's birth was registered June 1887 and his death registered March 1889.
• Daisy Mary Titheridge baptised 25 February 1889 and  married Ventriss Holloway in 1918.

The censuses show Mary Ann and Richard and their two surviving children continued to live with Mary Ann’s brother Edward and his children. On the 1891 census they were all living at 126a Alver Road, Mahala Cottage. Edward with his children Henry, Philip, Edward, Agnes and Albert; Richard and Mary Ann with William and Daisy. The 1901 census saw them all living at 32 Alver Road, Edward with Agnes 23 and Bert 20; and Richard and Mary Ann with William 17 and Daisy 12.

In 1904 Mary Ann died aged 58. On the 1911 census Edward was still living in the same address with his cousin/brother in law, Richard, and Richard’s children William and Daisy.  The house was filled with another generation of children with Edward’s daughter Agnes now married to Frederick Stoddard and with two small children aged 1 and 6 months.

Richard died June 1912 aged 67 in Alverstoke.

Cousins

How strange it must have been when on Richard and Mary Ann’s marriage when their aunt and uncle become their mother in law and father in law!

Were these the only cousins who married in the family tree? We don’t know the answer because we only noticed these because the surname was the same. If it had been a maternal cousin with a different surname we wouldn’t have known.

Get in touch if you know any cousins in the family who married.

James Titheridge – From Kilmeston to Kew

The Temperate House, Kew Gardens

Unconnected Facts

It is wonderful when two bits of a “jigsaw” join together! This was what happened to part of my family trees last month when some newly updated Middlesex Parish Records enabled me to connect two facts using parish records from Kilmeston in Hampshire, Chiswick in Middlesex and Mortlake in Surrey.

For Years I had known that James Titheridge who was born in Kilmeston, Hampshire in 1785 died in Richmond, Surrey in 1868, but I had no knowledge of the intervening 83 years.

For quite a while I had been aware of a family called Tytheridge who lived in Turnham Green, Middlesex but I had no idea who they were and where they came from.

As I researched the parish records of Hampshire, Middlesex and Surrey it was suddenly clear that I could follow James Titheridge from his birth in Kilmeston, Hampshire to Turnham Green, Middlesex and finally to Kew, Surrey.

James Titheridge’s family

James Titheridge was born in Kilmeston, Hampshire in 1785. He was one of four children born to John Titheridge and Sarah Allen. His mother, Sarah, died after the birth of his sibling when James was two years old.  His father John remarried Elizabeth Pike and they had three children.
 
Sometime before 1812 James left Kilmeston and travelled to Chiswick, Middlesex, a distance of nearly 60 miles. He probably moved from Kilmeston in search of work and by 1812 he was working as a gardener.  In the early part of the nineteenth century Chiswick was an area of market gardening and orchards, which provided food for the nearby city of London. Chiswick was situated on the north side of the Thames 7 miles from the city of London.

On 7 January 1812 James married Sarah Preston at St Nicholas, Chiswick. On the marriage records his surname is spelt Tytheridge not Titheridge. This new spelling was passed on to all his children. James and Sarah had six children born between 1812 and 1825 all baptised at St Nicholas, Chiswick. The baptism records show James working as a gardener, with the family living in Turnham Green, Middlesex, a small hamlet a mile to the north of Chiswick.

The children were

• Emma Tytheridge born 23 March 1812 and baptized on 7 June 1812. On 22 January 1843 Emma married Edward Gavell in West Hackney Parish Church. 
• James Tytheridge born 6 December 1814 and baptised 28 March 1815. James died aged 26 on 13 July 1840 and was buried at St Mary the Virgin, Mortlake.
• Christopher Tytheridge born 1 March 1817, baptized 15 June 1817. Christopher died in 1837 aged 20 and was buried on 23 February 1837 at St Mary the Virgin in Mortlake.
• John Tytheridge born 29 September 1819 and baptized 26 December 1819. John died in 1858 aged 40 and was buried at Brompton Cemetery, Middlesex. He died at Marlborough Street, Regent Street in the parish of St James, Westminster.  CORRECTION made in February 2021: John died in 1844 not 1858 as originally thought.
• Mary Laura Tytheridge born on 18 December 1821 and baptized 17 July 1825. Mary married Samuel Casson on 31 March 1850 at the parish church West Hackney.   J
• Alfred William Tytheridge born on 19 Mar 1825 and baptised on17 July 1825. Alfred was living with his father on the 1841 census and recorded by the name of William. No further records have been found for him under the name of Alfred or William.

In the parish records of St Nicholas, Chiswick, Sarah Tytheridge of Turnham Green is recorded as buried on 21 February 1826, age 46.  One must assume this is James’ wife which would have left James with six children aged between 14 and 1. However, on the 1841 census James is living with Sarah Tytheridge aged 55. I therefore assume he has married again but the marriage record has not been found, neither has any further record been found for Sarah Tytheridge.

James Moves to Mortlake

From the parish records we know the family were in Turnham Green up to 1825. By 1840 the family had moved two miles south across the River Thames to Mortlake, Surrey, a village situated on the south banks of the River. The 1840 London City directory shows James Tytheridge as making a living from an Eating House in Mortlake. The 1841 census shows James living on the High Street in Mortlake with his occupation again given as a gardener. Living with James are his two children Mary and William plus Sarah Tytheridge aged 55. On this census James’ son John is also living in Mortlake at another address.

James Moves to Kew

The 1851 census shows James has now moved 2 miles west to Kew. He is listed as a lodger at Solms Cottage, Richmond Road, St Anne’s Kew. He is described as a 63 years old widower, with his occupation a gardener and his place of birth is given as “Hants, Kimpson” (an old historic name for Kilmeston, Hampshire was Kimpston).

The 1861 census shows James as a lodger at 1 Gloucester Road, Kew. He is listed as a 72-year-old widower, but his place of birth illegible but definitely Hampshire. His occupation is gardener at The Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. What an amazing place it must have been to work in Kew Gardens in the Victorian Era.  The gardens became the National Botanical Garden in 1840, with the Palm House built between 1844 and 1848, followed by The Temperate House, which is twice as big, which opened in 1863. This was the period James was working at the Botanical Gardens. The greenhouses were built to house the tropical plants which the Victorian plant hunters brought home and must have been an amazing spectacle to the Victorians.

James died in 1868 with the death registered in Richmond Surrey. The parish records of Kew, St Anne’s show James Tytheridge was buried on 27 January 1868 aged 82.

The Palm House, Kew Gardens