An unusual marriage certificate

 

Willoughby Holyland was born in 1868 in Lutterworth, Leicestershire; there is no entry for his mother’s maiden name on the birth registration, implying that he was illegitimate.

He was listed in 1871 as “Willie”, the 1 year old son of Charles Holyland, a shoeing smith in Lutterworth, and his wife Ann. Three other children were listed in the same family, including a William apparently only one year old than “Willie”. Immediately this duplication of names sounds suspicious! Charles repeated that he was Willoughby’s father, as well as William’s, in 1881. In 1891, Willoughby, now a tailor by trade, was still in Charles’ and Ann’s household, but this time described as Charles’s nephew.

Willoughby’s marriage certificate sheds light on his true parentage. In August 1899, he married Lily Sarah Beatrice Davies at St Jude’s Church, in Birmingham. In my experience of looking at Victorian marriage certificates, those born illegitimately usually either have a line drawn through the box for the father’s details, or invent a father’s name, or use that of a subsequent stepfather. Willoughby did none of these things – instead, under “Father’s name and surname”, it clearly states, “Son of Sarah Holyland”. The space for the father’s occupation is left blank.

I have not seen the mother named in place of the father on any other marriage certificate from this era – has anyone else?

I believe that Willoughby’s mother Sarah was probably the older sister of Charles, the blacksmith who variously described Willoughby as his son or nephew in the censuses.  Sarah was baptised in Lutterworth in 1831; by 1851 she was working as a servant in the house of a clergyman in Leicester, and by 1871 she had moved to Marylebone, London, where she remained working as a servant until her death in 1885. She never married.  Did she fall pregnant in London and return to the family home to have the baby, then pick up her life where it left off? Or did she go to London after Willoughby’s birth to start again with a clean slate, leaving her baby in the care of her brother?  I don’t suppose I will ever know.