Sheriff Substitute

[gainsboroughlady]

I have just solved a problem which may be of interest to others. The marriage cert. of an uncle and aunt was authorized by Warrant of Sheriff Substitute of Aberdeen and Kincardine. This is a Scottish title for a local magistrate or Justice of the Peace. I found it by reading the script of a play on "Thirty-nine Steps" ..."This is Sheriff Watson, he is the Sheriff Substitute...the scotch for local beak".  Of course "beak" is English slang for magistrate. I am very happy to understand at last.

[MonicaL]

Hi gainsboroughlady

Welcome to RootsChat 

A couple of useful posts here on RC which give further background to these types of marriages:

www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,348725.0.html
www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,227262.0.html

Monica

[jessden]

Sorry to have to contradict you but a Sheriff in Scotland is a judge - not a JP or magistrate.  Before 1971 each county (or sometimes a group of counties) would have a Sheriff who had an extensive civil and criminal jurisdiction. The Sheriff was probably not resident in the area and a Sheriff Substitute would be appointed to reside there and preside over the local Sheriff Court and attend to the day to day business - with a jury in some cases.  Without going into great detail on Scottish legal history, I would suggest that the best way to look at this is to think of the Sheriff as dealing with a middle range of crime between the petty crime dealt with by local magistrates and the really serious stuff that would be tried in the High Court of Justiciary.  On the civil side he would deal with small to medium sized cases and major cases would be handled in the Court of Session in Edinburgh. He also had administrative duties as shown in the reference to marriages being by Sheriff's warrant.

Nowadays we have a Sheriff Principal for a wide regional area and Sheriffs who try most of the cases in the Sheriff Court - the word Substitute has been dropped.

Sorry if this seems over pedantic but I would like to emphasise that a Sheriff has much more extensive powers than a magistrate.
Jessie

[flst]

Thanks Jessie, for explaining that to us in so much detail. I'm sure we'll all have a better understanding of the Sheriff's role now!
flst

[Forfarian]

I have just solved a problem which may be of interest to others. The marriage cert. of an uncle and aunt was authorized by Warrant of Sheriff Substitute of Aberdeen and Kincardine. This is a Scottish title for a local magistrate or Justice of the Peace. I found it by reading the script of a play on "Thirty-nine Steps" ..."This is Sheriff Watson, he is the Sheriff Substitute...the scotch for local beak".  Of course "beak" is English slang for magistrate. I am very happy to understand at last.

What you have there is a marriage by declaration. Before the days of civil marriages, and assuming that you were free to marry and of an age to marry, you could be legally married simply by declaring in front of witnesses that you were marrying one another. In order to have the marriage registered, and get a marriage certificate, you had to submit evidence to the Sheriff within three months of the date of the declaration, which could be in the form of a written statement signed by the bride and groom and by the witnesses. If the Sheriff was satisfied of the marriage and that at least one of the parties either had their usual residence in Scotland, or had been living there for 21 days before the marriage, he granted a warrant to the relevant Registrar to enter the marriage in the register of marriages.

Marriage by declaration was done away with in (I think, but no doubt someone will correct me if my memory is at fault) the 1930s.

[gainsboroughlady]

Jessden...thank you for the info about sheriff substitutes. I looked all over for the meaning of the phrase, without much luck. It was just by accident I came across the ref. in "Thirty-nine Steps". Much appreciated.