Marriage, St Vincent Street, Glasgow

[Okonski]

The Glasgow addresses are fairly spread about and in a mix of areas

Bath Street addresses are quite far apart in the street with 51 being nearer the city centre its possible that these were offices/homes

21 Hope street is at the bottom end of the street and while it is now primarily a business address at that time it would have been a tenement building
(the same goes for 19 Howard Street)

The other possibility is that some of these could have been meeting houses for different groups (e.g. Salvation Army) 

Have to disagree slightly. None of the streets mentioned were high density housing, and the Post Office directory of the time lists commercial names at a ratio of 3/1 for these streets. I seriously doubt that the 'bottom end of Hope Street' was residential as by that time the buildings were new, to complement the arrival of the Railway Station (from over the river).

[RJ_Paton]

The maps and valuation rolls of the period show that area to be a mix of domestic and business properties without the seperation that we expect today.
21 Hope street was  a workshop,warehouse and offices for various grain and iron merchants with one dwelling for the caretaker.

Plus and this is probably the main one as far as this topic goes ... the office of Robert Watson - Writer - (a writer is one who specialises in contracts)

[ADP]

Writer will be "Writer to the Signet" - a solicitor. "Writer", or abbreviation "WS" is quite commonly found on documents.

ADP

[LindsaySiam]

http://www.cba-qs.com/projects/housing_print.html

shows a Project for Refurbishment of 478-496 St. Vincent Street, Glasgow by Sandyford Housing Association, maybe they might have some info on the former use of the building?

Lindsay

[Okonski]

A 'writer' is indeed one of the tasks of a solicitor's office - not necessarily a 'writer to the signet' - usually denoted as 'WS', which is a law library in Edinburgh.  It does appear that these 'Warrant' marriages, by and large are/were performed in commercial properties, usually solicitor's offices.

Regarding 473 St Vincent Street, I recall this area in the 1950's, and it is a red sandstone property (a standard tenement). Once St.V crosses North Street (where the M8 now passes) commercial properties gave way to high density housing, usually with shops/pubs on the ground floor front, with 2 room houses to the rear ground, and 4 room houses on the upper floors.

[Forfarian]

My grandmother married in 1908 to her first husband a sailor at her home address by sherriffs warrent I didnt understand this but I've now learnt apparently a justice would visit the home of person to be married and  would announce them wed
they would then take certificate to regestary office and pay for it to be registered but sometimes people couldnt afford to pay the fee so didnt bother with registration. I hope this helps.

Not always quite like this. The marriage was legal if you declared yourselves to be married in front of two witnesses, it didn't matter where. There was no requirement for anyone else to be present.

Then you had to register the marriage, and to do that you had to get a warrant from the sheriff, who would take a statement from the witnesses to the effect that yes, they had seen and heard you declare yourselves married.

After 1855 it wasn't a case of not being able to afford to register. You were legally obliged to register a marriage, whether by a minister or by declaration.

HTH

Forfarian

[AngelaS]

Many of my relatives have the same address listed for their marriages.  Apparently it cost more to get married if the couple gave separate addresses so most got round it by giving the same address.

[WILLIAM 1]

have you tried the mitchell library in glasgow they hold everything for scotland in there http://www.mitchelllibrary.org/vm/
The Mitchell
North Street
Glasgow
G3 7DN

Phone: 0141 287 2999 or 2876
Fax:     0141 287 2815
E-mail: lil@cls.glasgow.gov.uk



Opening Hours



Monday-Thursday
 9am-8pm
 
Friday, Saturday
 9am-5pm
 
http://www.glasgow.gov.uk/en/Residents/Leisure_Culture/Libraries/Librarylocations/themitchell.htm

try this i hope you get what you are looking for

[Forfarian]

have you tried the mitchell library in glasgow they hold everything for scotland in there

Sorry, but this is not the case. The Mitchell Library is an excellent resource for family history in the Glasgow area, but it does not hold any birth, marriage or death certificates, and it holds census and parish register microfilms only for the counties surrounding Glasgow. 

Having said that, it does indeed hold very nearly everything (except BMD certificates) for Glasgow. In particular it holds a huge stock of directories, electoral registers and valuation rolls for the city so it would indeed be an excellent place to try for an answer to the original question.