There are several couples in my tree and in Himself's who were married at Fleet prison in London...known as Clandestine Marriages, because they were of couples who hadn't gone through the normal route of having Banns and a Licence to marry by their local priest.
Fleet prison was for debtors...who had a rough time of their sentence if they didn't have friends and family to bring them food...no three well-balanced meals a day for them. And they weren't released until their debt was paid off...
Outside the prison, but still under prison rules, lived the unfrocked priests and a group of dodgy clerks...these were the men you needed to see if you wanted to marry your twelve year old girlfriend or if you were already married to someone you didn't much care for anymore...for a small fee the priest would perform the ceremony and one of the grubby clerks would do the paperwork...
There were many couples who'd travelled to London to escape the wrath of their families...young ones who were eloping and such-like...
Around the prison were many Inns and Public houses who employed touts,to persuade the newly married couples to spend their first night in the best Inn with the biggest bed and the cleanest sheets...
It was a thriving business opportunity for everyone involved...dressmakers had rooms where you could have a new frock made...the glovers sold white skin gloves for the finishing touch...Gypsies could provide a nosegay of herbs to ward off some of the stench of the streets...
In fact it became the place to be seen...so much so, that wealthy couples began to flock to Fleet to be married...bringing with them their entourage of family and friends. It's estimated that 90% of all London marriages took place at Fleet prison in the last few years before the Marriage Act of 1753 came into force.
That Act made it punishable by law if Banns were not read at churches and Licences to marry were not paid...
It is because of the clerks, who painstakingly wrote down names and dates and places of origin, that we can now find those of our relatives who chose, for whatever reason, to be married by a defrocked priest outside a debtors prison.
Whether they ever felt slightly guilty being married by the iron bars across the open windows of the prison where hungry and lice-ridden debtors stretched out their arms pleading for a bit of bread we'll never know.
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