Christmas Day Weddings

Stapleford church on a winter morning
cc-by-sa/2.0 - © John Sutton - geograph.org.uk/p/2841826

In his newsletter, Peter Calver of Lost Cousins had pointed to this article, Christmas weddings in Victorian England. Having come across various Christmas Day Weddings, I had surmised - and the article confirms - that one of the less romantic reasons would have been because it was one of the few days that workers had free. As they explain, "Christmas weddings certainly happened because people were poor and had little time away from their jobs." The other, related, reason was that, "churches often offered their services free or at reduced rates on Christmas, and a flip through marriage registers shows a definite spike in the number of ceremonies performed."

Christmas Day has been the most popular day for weddings in our family: 

1. Arthur Edward Copeland and Alice Jane Hurry
2. Arthur Woodham and Mary Matilda Sweeney
3. Charles Albert Gardner and Susannah Sweney
4. George Burt and Fanny Jerwood
5. George Fuller and Eliza Ellen Hockley
6. George Fuller and Elsie Elizabeth Sear
7. George James Hockley and Emily Jane Jiggins
8. Harry Martin and Mabel Grace Tompson
9. James Hockley and Elizabeth Wilton
10. John Daines and Sarah White
11. John William Stone and Rosina Sweeney
12. Jonah Ing and Elizabeth Tooze
13. Lewis Jerred and Mary Elizabeth Williams
14. Lewis William Kerslake and Beatrice Hoare
15. Peter Barton and Annie Fuller
16. Richard Ford and Maria Eliza Isabella Sweeney
17. Robert Ware and Amelia Land
18. William Edward Burton and Ellen Rosina Baker

There have also been numerous Baptisms on Christmas Day, including: 

George Goodman, Thomas Alfred Goodman, Mabel Grace Tompson, George Daniel Tompson and Amelia Mary Tompson, Winifred May Ware, Stephen Wilton, Frederick James Stone, Mary Summers and Richard Summers, Eleanor Doe, Walter Wood, John Shatford, John Tooze, William Phillips, James Tapp, James Orchard, James Ridgway, Richard Land, Richard Gollop, Mary Ann Stone, Thomas Henry Richards Gardner.

The article, Christmas weddings in Victorian England, also mentions that Boxing Day was one of the days when churches often offered their services free or at reduced rates. That may well have come from the origins of the day itself, so named "Boxing Day", as "Charitable boxes – collections of money – would have been given out at the church door to the needy".