Couple Finds Shipboard Weddings Not Authorised

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28249, 10 April 1957, Page 13

Couple Finds Shipboard Weddings Not Authorised

(Rec. 8 p.m.) MELBOURNE, April 9.

Shipboard weddings in Australian and most British ships are an "old wives’ tale,” according to shipping authorities at Melbourne. They said last night that it was impossible for couples to be married in Australian ships and in most British ships. Most Australians are still of the opinion that ships’ captains can perform the marriage service, but their authority to do so lapsed some years ago. A young British couplej who arrived at this truth the hard way, landed at Fremantle aboard

the Iberia yesterday. The couple, Mr and Mrs N. W. Preston, formerly of London, who boarded the liner as Mr N. W. Preston, of Cabin 139, and Miss Joan Kervin, of Cabin 150, told how they had asked the captain to marry them at sea, but he had told them it could not be done. So in the few hours the ship berthed at Cape Town they were married.

The master of the Iberia, Captain C. E. Politt, said last night: “I can bury you at sea, but 1 am certainly not vested Nvith authority to marry people in my ship.”