GRETNA GREEN MARRIAGES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1045, 18 May 1912, Page 4

GRETNA GREEN MARRIAGES.

The Gretna Green Marriage Register is to be «old, and the Government is being moved to si .re the record. The Register contains transcripts of the certificates iu the band writing of John Biulou (who celebrated nearly ail the marriages). Tht catalogue of sale points out the legal importance of the collection, and adds that the authenticity of the certificates is unquestionable, and that they have several Limes been accepted as evidence iu courts of law.

John Binlon, the celebrant of

the marriages, was at one time confidential servant to Sir James Graham at Nethesby. He then invested his savings in the purchase of Gretna Hall, which he turned into an inn. His house became the most popular at Gretna for eloping couples. Of the first important marriage in the register —that ol Edward Gibbon Wakefield to Ellen Turner on Bth March, 1826 —the certificate has been lost. Miss Turner was an heiress, only 16 years ol age, and Wakefield decoyed her from school by means of a forged letter, and induced her to marry him by pretending that her compliance was necessary to save her father from ruin. He was subsequently tried for abduction, and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, the marriage being annulled by a special Act of Parliament. Some years alter his release Wakefield emigrated to Australia, and played an important part in the development of that country and New Zealand. In all there are over a thousand certificates in the forthcoming sale. Among the most interesting of the marriages, the certificates of which are preserved, is that of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, grandson 01 the dramatist, to Maria Grant, daughter and heiress of Lieut. - Gen. Sir Colquuouu Grant, which took place on 17th May, 1535 ; of Captain Francis Lovell to Lady Rose Caroline Mary Somerset, daughter of the seventh Duke of Beaufort, ou qth October, 1836 ; of Lord Urumlanrig, afterwards seventh Marquiss ot Oueensbury, to Miss Caroline Glayton (an elopmeut remarkable for the fact that instead of using the traditional post chaise the lovers made the journey to Gretna ou horseback) ; and of Capt. Ch. Parke Ibbetson to Lady Arela Corisaune Maud Villiers, daughter of the Earl of Jersey, ou 6th November, 1845. In making a runaway match Lady Adela was following the example of her grandmother, Miss Sarah Child, daughter of the head of Child’s Bank, who was married at Gretna Green to Lord Westmorland. The story ot then pursuit by the augry banker, who only gave up the chase after one of the horses in his coach had been shot by Ins prospective sou un-law, is one of the most famous in the auuals of Gretna Green. Gretna Green marriages were put a slop to in 1856 by an Act which required persons domiciled in England to reside 21 da>s in Scotland before beiug married there.