Gretna Green

Southland Times, Issue 22915, 13 June 1936, Page 16

Gretna Green

Mr Richard Rennison, the man who has married more than 2000 couples over the anvil in the famous blacksmith’s shop at Gretna Green, recently revealed in evidence before the committee inquiring into Scotland’s marriage laws, how the business is conducted, states an overseas newspaper. Mr Rennison, who became caretaker at the blacksmith’s shop in 1927, declared that from time to time he had been out of pocket by marrying people “The usual fee charged by me for marrying a couple,” he said, “is one guinea, but there are times when I receive nothing.” Mr George Mackie, of Floshend Farm, Gretna, the manager of the shop and employer of Mr Rennison, had told the committee that the blacksmith’s shop ceased to be a smithy

in 1900. The sums received by Mr Rennison for marrying couples, he said, varied from nothing to £2O. He denied a suggestion that he employed Mr Rennison because he thought he was good at the business of bluffing. Mr Rennison, in his evidence, declared that he was willing to marry couples at any time of the day or night, and that if he was not available his wife undertook to conduct the marriages. “When couples come to the shop, he said, “I ask them if they have the necessary 21 days’ residence in Scotland. When they have satisfied me on this point, I ask them for their witnesses. If they have none I supply the witnesses, to whom I pay a fee of 2/6. During the summer season at Gretna, the busy season, I keep five people ready to act as witnesses. In reply to questions on the fees charged for marrying couples, Mr Rennison said: “I am not what you call a moneygrabber. All I want is to live. Neither am I a priest. I do not wish to be a priest.”