AN UNLICENSED CHURCH.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 111, 12 May 1909, Page 11

AN UNLICENSED CHURCH.

♦ ONE THOUSAND WEDDINGS ILLEGAL. DISCLOSURE IN A BUCKINGHAM VILLAGE. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, 2nd April. An extraordinary disclosure, which has spread consternation throughout the district, has just bsen made at Stantonbury, a village in Buckinghamshire. This is, that the Church of St. James is not licensed for marriages, and that the thqnsand or so weddings that have taken place there in the last fifty years are illegal. - Steps, however, will be at once taken to legalise these marriages. St. James, Stantonbury, is an ecclesiastical parish formed out of the parishes of Stantonbury, St. Peter's, and Bradwell St. Lawrence in 1860. It was the vicar himself who made the revelation, in the course of his sermon on Sunday evening. He_ said he had discovered a flaw in the title of a document, in connection with which ib had become necessary to communicate with the RegistrarGeneral. He made enquiries at Somer set House, of the Registrar-General, and of the secretary of the Oxford Diocesan Registry. The latter searched into his own archives, and found that apparently no license for marriages was ever issued at the consecration of St. James's Church some fifty years ago. The vicar added that he was therefore unable to solemnise any marriages or public banns. However, marriages would take place at St. Peter's Church, Stantonbury. Naturally the announcement created, a very great sensation with the congregation. INHIBITION SERVED. When interviewed on the subject, the vicar, the Rev. A. N. Guest, said that until the Ecclesiastical Commissioners had issued au order legalising marriages none could take place. He also had re ceived an inhibition served upon him by the Registrar-General prohibiting him from celebrating any marriages or announcing banns until the order was obtained. In the meantime, he had arranged for banns to be published and marriages solemnised at St. Peter's Church. He had arranged that the marriages should bo solemnised as near Easter as possible, and the banns published by him for months or weeks would be recalled, and would be announced at a special celebration of the Holy Eucharist on Palm Sunday, Easter Sunday, and Low Sunday, at St. Peter's Church. The marriages would be delayed a fortnight. Thus, for the last fifty years, added the vicar, the marriages celebrated were technically illegal. During that time one thousand marriages had been contracted. Steps would, of course, be taken immediately to legalise them, either by an order from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners or by the passing of a special Act of Parliament. When the new church was built at St. James's it virtually became the parish church, and, in fact, has all the powers and privileges of a parish church, St. Peter's only being used on festa-1 'days. It differs in this respect from a chapel-at-ease. Had it been built as a chapel at-ease to the parish church them would have been no need to license itIt is just possible the vicar thought that some confusion might have arisen as to the position of the church, hence the omission to obtain a license.