LOVERS WED AT DEATHBED

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 158, 24 September 1927, Page 18 (Supplement)

LOVERS WED AT DEATHBED

Married in London Hospital Ward Dying Man 's Wish TEN DAYS’ VIGIL OF TRAGIC BRIDE A touching story of a boy-and-girl love, which, by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s special sanction, culminated in a death-bed wedding in a crowded ward of a London hospital, came to light recently. Since they were mere children, George Edward Hart, of Nile Street, City Road, London, and a beautiful orphan girl, Rebecca Talbot, of St. Bartholomew’s Buildings, near by, had been sweethearts. He was now 24 and she just 21, and their love had ripened to betrothal. „ . Young Hart, after a long spell of .unemployment, had recently got a job tas a pleater—work at which he excelled—and the lovers, full of hope, had planned to marry at the end of this month. The bride and bridesmaids’ [wedding frocks were already made. Then Hart was stricken with pneumonia and taken to St. Barthdlomew’s Hospital, where it was realised that he could never recover. Race Against Time The young man, too, knew he could not live, and he confided to the chaplain of the hospital, the Rev. J. L. Douglas, that his one desire was to marry his sweetheart. So desperate was his condition that it was a race against time. But neither Somerset House nor the Bishop of London, who were approached, could authorise an immediate marriage under such conditions. Only one man coulcl do this—the Archbishop of Canterbury—and to him pie curate, the Rev. A.. E. Saul, made [application. When the Primate had ‘heard the sad story he at once granted a special licence ordaining that the ceremony might be solemnised in the hospital at any hour of the day or night. There was still one obstacle. For the licence, £25 had to be found. This difficulty was quickly overcome. The ecclesiastical authorities waived their fee of £2O, and the matron of St. Bartholomew’s offered to pay the £5 sta.mp duty. A wedding ring was hurriedly purchased, and at six o’clock the same evening—three hours after the usual time-limit for weddings—the lovers were made man and wife. Bride’s Tragic Vigil Screens were drawn round the bed, and the other patients in the ward, with tears in their eyes, heard the dying man and his bride repeat tlife responses. The ceremdpy was performed by the Rev. J. L. Douglas, arid the only witnesses of the pathetic ceremony were the bridegroom’s mother and the ward sister, Miss G. M. Cross. “Thank God, darling, that you are my wife,” murmured the young husband as he sank back exhausted. Five days later the bride was a widow. As a lover she had watched beside the bed almost continuously for five days. Now for another five days she was to continue, as a wife, her tragic vigil, scarcely closing her eyes the whole time, and supported by Mrs. Hart, senr., who shared her watch. “Sleep was impossible,” the young widow told a Press representative afterwards. “The was called ‘Hope,’ and as I sat holding my husband's hand I hoped against hope that he might live. “Thinking it might help him, I talked to him of the future we had planned—of the little home we were to build together. “He just smiled and called me ‘wife/ but he knew he would never leave that ward. “Then at times he would think he was still in the Territorial camp of the R.G.A., in which he was a bombardier. “I am undyingly grateful to all who helped me to become his wife. He was a splendid fellow, and a real gentleman ” Telling a pressman how he secured the licence which made the wedding possible, Mr. Saul declared, “I shall never forget the look on young Hart's face and his handgrip when I told him that the marriage was possible.” The Archbishop of Canterbury .held the power to grant the licence under an Act of the reign of Henry VIII.