Hi everyone :-)
So the confusion continues....
Today, I found a Marriage Allegation on Ancestry for Thomas Herbert.... it says:
8 May 1799
Thomas Herbert of the Parish of Fulham, Middx a bachelor above the age of 21.
Intends to marry Grace Medhurst of the same Parish and above the age of 21...
I can't find an actual marriage for them in London, only the Allegation.
but we also have the following:
Archdeaconry of Lewes Marriage Licence
25 April 1800
Thomas Herbert - subject detail - Bach 24+ mariner Seaford
Grace Medhurst - spouse detail - sp 18+ otsp wcof Robt.M clocksmith Thos a Beckett Cliffe Lewes
Sponsors: T.H. John Holman yeo otsp - SRS 25
and the marriage at Seaford, East Sussex
1st May 1800
Thomas Herbert - bach and Grace Medhurst - sp botp (lic)
It looks to me, and I might be wrong, that there was opposition to their marriage, so they decided to run off to London to do the deed, but at some point afterwards they returned to Seaford (without going through the actual marriage in London) and were married a year later with the consent of her father!! An expensive exercise I would have thought, a Marriage Allegation in London and then marrying by License in Seaford... They settled in Seaford for a number of years, moving back to London sometime after 1816 (when their son Robert was born) but before 1827 as that's when Grace died... what a confusing family!!
Anna