Place of marriage

My wife's g-g-grandmother Penelope Newton was born in Weston in
Gordano, Somerset (1838). Her g-g-grandfather Richard White Manning
was born in Bristol (1828). He moved to Liverpool when he was a
teenager. They married in 1856 in Haverfordwest. Her father John
Newton was a famer. (We have this info from the marriage certificate.)

I'm wondering why they might have married in Haverfordwest? Would that

roy...

Reasons why people married in places they did, and often far, far
away from where you might have expected them to marry, are many and
varied and often it needs some lateral thinking to explain them.
Sometimes you can do no more than make an educated guess.

I have just published the ancestry of an actress in my "Famous
People" series in Practical Family History magazine and her ancestors
came from all over the place, including Cardiff, Kent, London,
Gloucestershire, Jamaica, Tasmania and New Zealand. They were mostly
middle to upper middle class, including army officers, shipowners, a
customs clerk, accountants, a vicar, bank manager, stationer,
schoolteacher etc, so you would expect them to be fairly mobile.

However, one great-grandfather called William Peto, born at Sydenham,
Kent in 1867, married at a Baptist chapel at Holmfirth in Yorkshire
(the town made famous in Last of the Summer Wine) in 1894 to the
22-year-old daughter, Amy Helen Woodhead, of a local wool mill owner.
How did William come to marry a girl so far from his birthplace when
there is no evidence from the censuses that he or his family had ever

Hans Norton...

C Rihan replied

lived in the West Riding of Yorkshire or anywhere near it? No-one in
the actress's family had a clue but I discovered from the 1901 census
and B/M certificates that William Peto was an electrical engineer
and the family had a piece of folklore that he had done some work at
Buckingham Palace. I couldn't confirm this, but I speculated that he
may well have been commissioned to do some electrical work on the
mill at Holmfirth, met the boss's daughter and married her. Equally,
it's possible they met at one of the numerous exhibitions in London
in the late Victorian era.

C Rihan...

I've heard of the naem PETO before somewhere, so I did a bit of
searching the web for Peto engineer and found
Civil engineers, architects , etc.
One of those listed is
Peto, Samuel Morton (born Woking, August 1809., died Nov 1889.)
He was a 'builder and conractor' who worked on several ' railway and other
major works'. Some of whick are listed there with a summary of his career.
It says he worked on the construction of Crystal Palace, so may be his firm
was
involved in moving it to Sydenham too in 1862.

Wikipedia also has an article on Sir Samuel Morton Peto.

Hans Norton...

For what its worth, Harold Peto started as an architect with Ernest
(later Sir Ernest) George as a partner. Sir Ernest eventually became
president of the Royal Institute of British Architects. I have an
etching of his
before me as I write. Harold Peto changed course slightly in later life
and became a very well-known landscape gardener and designer.

Hans Norton

The firm, Peto and Grissel, also built many well-known London buildings
including Nelson's Column.

If William Peto was working for this firm it looks as though he would have
had plenty of opportunity to travel.

Best wishes
C.Rihan

Both theories are speculative, and both may be wrong, but I mention
them only to illustrate that sometimes speculate is all you can hope
to do!

Phil C....

I wonder what status an electrical engineer would have had then. In
historical terms, electricity was still a relative novelty. The term
"engineer" is ambiguous and can mean anything from a
consultant/designer/manager to an underling in overalls with a
spanner. Perhaps he went away to study and met the sister of a fellow
student(?) Just an idle guess.

JohnB...

My own feelings are that it was Penelope, not Richard, that was
responsible for the location of the wedding. Either the Newton family
had moved to Pembrokeshire to manage a new farm OR Penelope had gone to
work in service for some toffs out there.

Richard became a successful business man in Liverpool and was involved
in the Reform Club (possibly in its establishment) which is where he
spent his last years. I think his last registered address (1901
census) is the Reform Club. [Is this something to do with the Liberal
Party?] In the newspaper cutting my wife has - obituary - he is also
described as "nephew to William Patterson, builder of the Great
Eastern". If accurate, I guess this would mean Richard's father's
sister was WP's wife (Richard's father was Robert Manning, Stock
Keeper); or, that Richard's mother was a Patterson. (I have found a
Mary Ann Manning, b 1806/7, but cannot prove she was Richard's mother.)
Unfortunately, I haven't found any details of the family back then.

As Penelope originated from the same area as Richard (Bristol area) it
would make sense (to me) if they had met through family connections
back then, but by the time they married, Penelope at least had moved to
Pembrokeshire.

Many thanks for your thoughts and theories. It all helps with the
learning!

Roy Stockdill

"There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about,
and that is not being talked about."

Oscar Wilde

CWatters...

Who married them? Perhaps a relative was a minister?

JohnB...

The name on the marriage certificate wasn't one we'd recognise.
However, weren't there rules about where you were allowed to marry? Or
was it just convention? I was trying to work out if it was just
Penelope or her whole family that had moved to Haverfordwest district,
or could there be some other reason. I also thought that if her father
was a farmer he wouldn't move around too often - except that he could
have been a tenant farmer?

Richard White Manning was working in Liverpool as (IIRC) a warehouseman
at the time of the marriage as far as we can tell.

have been where the whole Newton family was living or just Penelope?

Serena Blanchflower...

Are there any clues on the marriage certificate? Where were they both
shown as living? What about their occupations?

A check on the 1851 census might find where the family was living then
(I'm not able to do this at present) but the 5 year gap leaves plenty
of possibilities!

Fenny...

Might he have been a sailor? Bristol, Liverpool and HAverfordwest are all
ports.

Hugh Watkins...

or a soldier

there were substantial camps out in Pembrokeshire
also harbour and railway building

mining ? I can't remember (long way from MON - even GLA was distant to
the Usk valley)

Hugh W

john...

In 1851 Penelope was still in Weston (Nurse maid for another farming
family). Richard was in Liverpool(Shop man for Provisions dealer)