THE CAREER OF A CURATE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1185, 13 December 1883, Page 3

THE CAREER OF A CURATE.

At Birmingham, a few weeks ago, Thomas Morris Hughes, clerk in holy orders, until recently a curate at Bickenliill, near Birmingham, was charged on remaDd, with having committed I'igamy, The prisoner, it is alleged, was married first to a widow of means, at Shrewsbury, in 1866, and she accompanied him to LlanJanial, Anglesey, of which place he became curate. He there gave way to drink, and was at length imprisoned for three months for violent assault. In 1875, he was sentenced by Lord Coleridge, at the Beaumaris Assizes, to five years' ppnal servitude for supplying false information, upon which a register of death was filled up, his object being to hide the fact that he had seduced his stepdaughter, and that she had had a child, which died when only a few weeks old. When released from gaol Hughes came with his wife to Birmingham, and he is alleged from that period to have lived a life of drunkenness and debauchery. It has been discovered that while curate at Darlaston, in Staffordshire, he went through a mock marriage with a young governess, with whom he afterwards lived in apartments in Birmingham, and by whom he had two children. She ultimately left him and went to America, where she died in giving birth to another child. He next induced a young woman, named Mary Ann Morgan, the daughter of a carpenter, to marry him, and the ceremony was performed by special license. In November last he became curate of Bickenhill, and absconded in the following July, in. company with the vicar'9 cook, with whom he was living when apprehended. The woman with whom he went through the last bigamous marriage is now an imbecile, and is about to be removed to an asylum. The prisoner, who stated that he was guilty of the charges, was remanded. The Birmingham correspondent of the Central News telegraphs :—Further enquiries in connection with the notorious clerical bigamy case have brought to light another mysterious marriage and disappearance of the husband. In April, 1875, a man, dressed as a clergyman, giving the name of Peter Blair, took lodgings in Bishop street, Balsall Heath, Birmingham, and was occupied in religious work, On the 28th of June be married a young girl at St Jude's Church. Within a few days he began to llltrcat her ; got possession of and pledged her watch and other articles ; and one morning, within a fortnight after the marriage, he left her, remarking, laughingly, that he supposed he should have to treat her as he had done his other thirteen wives. The poor woman thought he was joking, but he never returned, and she went back to her relatives. The police are endeavoring t« ascertain whether Blair is identical with the Rev Thomas Hughes, the Birmingham bigamist.