The wedding match

Group weddings were popular in Manchester 190 years before they became famous in Las Vegas - with some shocking results.

It was Whit Monday in 1835 and the wedding couples were gathering outside the Old Church for their big day.

Back then the building that became known as Manchester Cathedral was a favoured spot for Mancunians to tie the knot — because the fees were cheaper than at other churches.

And with a pile of up to 180 marriage banns to be read out on Sunday, the vicar hit on a remarkable plan. Why not do them as a job lot?

Of course, there was always a chance of a little mishap, he must have thought.

But he decided to give it a try.

Crowds had begun to gather outside the church early that morning — waiting to see the spectacle.

A writer named Sir George Head who was visiting Manchester described the scene:

“A full quarter of an hour before the striking of the clock, two beadles in parish liveries had taken ground opposite the church door, and a sufficient number of persons, chiefly young women, had assembled, whose curious and anxious looks testified that something extraordinary was about to take place.”

Head described how the couples were all poor people unable to afford special wedding outfits. Gathered outside the church with their friends, it was impossible to say which of them was getting married.

Only one couple turned up in a small carriage, pulled by a solitary horse. It was only meant for two people but carried four, plus “a fat man with bushy whiskers” thought to be the bride’s brother, who sat next to the coachman.

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“Within, packed as closely as they could possibly sit, on one side were the two bridesmaids,” Head wrote. “Opposite to these was the bride and bridegroom — a spruce, sandy haired young man — looking flush and eager.”

The bridegroom held his bride-to-be around the waist and kept glancing at her very tenderly.

But Head could not decide whether the man looked like a statue of Cupid or “a Scotch terrier watching a rat hole”.

The bridesmaids wore short petticoats and satin bonnets with “sugar loaf crowns” and their hair was combed upwards at the back, he said.

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As the carriage arrived, the coachman cracked his whip and the horse stopped dead — almost throwing him and the fat brother to the ground.

When the church door finally opened and the wedding parties piled inside, there were about 50 people seated nervously on wooden benches in front of the altar.

The bridegrooms began to whisper to each other — some of the brides tittered. The couple who had arrived in the carriage were parading up and down.

At the door stood a “sheepish-looking” groom who appeared terrified to step inside, Head wrote.

“He was immediately assailed on all sides with, ‘Come in man. What art thou afraid of? Nobody’ll hurt thee!’ And then a general laugh went round in a repressed tone, but quite sufficient to confound and subdue the newcomer. At last a sudden buzz broke out — ‘the clergyman’s coming’ and all was perfectly silent.”

Head described what happened next. About 12 couples who were to be married gathered around the altar and then the vicar began:

“Daniel and Phoebe, this way. Daniel, take off your gloves. Daniel. William and Anne. No, Anne. Here Anne. T’other side, William. John and Mary. Here, John. Oh John, gently John. Now all of you give your hats to some person to hold.”

Despite the obvious confusion, he was “scrupulously exact” in obtaining the accurate responses from each of them, Head wrote.

But another vicar at the Old Church was less exacting during another mass wedding service at a similar time, according to another writer named Benjamin Love.

The church’s altar, he said, witnessed “the joining together of thousands of happy and perhaps some unhappy couples”.

“It is amusing to witness the crowds of candidates for nuptial honours which present themselves at the expiration of Lent, during which season the fees are doubled,” he wrote. “Indeed, so numerous are they, the wedding is celebrated by wholesale.”

“A chaplain of poor memory is said accidentally to have united, at this season, the wrong parties — and when the circumstances have been represented to him, has replied, ‘Pair as you go out. You’re all married. Pair as you go out!’”

This verbal wedding certificate appeared to be “quite satisfactory among the happy throng”, Love wrote, “and each man failed not to find his mate”.

But some bridegrooms were less than happy with this vicar, who also had a whim for changing children’s names as he was baptising them.

“Occasionally, after he had dispatched the marriage service for some 30 couples, a party of young men might be seen rushing to him, some piping their eyes, others indignant, exhibiting a variety of emotions,” Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country wrote.

“Please sir,” several voices could be heard to shout at the nonchalant chaplain, “I’m wed to th’ wrong lass”.

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Mass weddings in Manchester

Looking back through the marriage records at Manchester Cathedral shows the huge number of weddings that were taking place there in the 1830s.

At that time, it was known not as the cathedral but as the Parish Church of St Mary, St Deny and St George.

Deny is the patron saint of France and, if you’ve been to Paris, you’ll know there is an area of the city called Saint Dennis.

He may have been included in the church’s name originally to reflect the French heritage of the Lord of the Manchester Manor, Lord de la Warre.

On 4 May 1835 no less than 22 men were listed in the banns as to be married, like this one for John King and his bride Ann Bloodworth.

The documents are a great resource for family historians and often give people’s occupations and say something about their social standing.

In this case, John and Ann both signed a mark instead of their names, showing they could not read of write.

Hopefully they married the right person and not the wrong one.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s story. Thank you to Catherine Wain who told me about Manchester’s mass weddings while we were on one of my tours last week.

I still have some tickets left for my last few Angel Meadow tours of this year if you want to join me, click on this link to book tickets.

Have a great weekend!