Anyone can tell a love story. About how they or someone they knew met, fell in love, married, and lived happily ever after.
But how many can say their marriage was the very first to be held in their local church?
That's something my great-uncle Jack and his wife Mary were able to lay claim to.
Three Mile Cross was, until recent years, a small village lying - as its name suggests - around a crossroads three miles to the south of Reading, Berkshire. For such a tiny place, it experienced a great deal of fame having been the focus of Mary Russell Mitford's writings in The Lady magazine between 1820s and 1830s, subsequently published as Our Village, causing people to travel from as far as America to visit.
As the Methodist movement swept across England, with John Wesley himself visiting Reading in the late 1770s, several chapels and preaching rooms were established in the area. The Three Mile Cross Methodist Church was built in 1876.
The church welcomed preachers, a congregation, and visitors from far around, and was home to a number of activities, including a very popular Sunday School and Girls' Life Brigade meetings. One thing they were yet to host, however, was a wedding.
That changed on Saturday, 18th September, 1948, 72 years after opening, with the marriage of my great-uncle (my father's uncle) Jack Hearn and his bride Mary Wickens. I've previously introduced regular readers to Mary as part of my previous post, Interesting occupations, Reading's 3'B's, and a dairy research institute, and to Jack in Ancestors at War earlier this week.
A bible was presented to them with a dedication bookplate reading:
"Presented to Jack & Mary Hearn to mark the occasion of the First Marriage at Three Mile Cross Methodist Church. Minister: Wilfred W. M. White. Trust Sec.: R. Stanley Morris. Trust Treas.: F. G. Dennis. Saturday, September 18th 1948."
We had come across the bible when sorting through their belongings following Jack's death. A family bible isn't unusual, but the bookplate inscription threw us a little. A church wouldn't be marking a couple's first marriage, making the assumption that others would follow. Yet with the church being almost three-quarters of a century old, how had a marriage not taken place eaelier?
But, sure enough, that was the case, as confirmed in A history of Three Mile Cross Methodist Church published by the Spencers Wood Local History Group, 2013:
[minister Rev'd Wilfred White] ... obtained a licence to conduct weddings at the Chapel, and the first took place in September 1948, between Mary Wickens and Jack Hearn.
I notice on the same page that Mary's mother, Agnes, was elected to be an officer for the Sunday School the following year, which is making me wonder whether Jack and Mary being the first married might have been a case of who you know. That said, Mary was also involved with The Girls' Life Brigade, so would've been well known in the church.
After the ceremony, Jack and Mary had their reception at the Oxford Hall dancehall, a popular venue of the time in central Reading. The following day they took a two-week honeymoon on Hayling Island.
Jack and Mary were such a doting couple, barely spending a moment apart in their 80-odd years together. I fondly remember visits to their house just around the corner from our own where you'd always be offered a warm welcome with a biscuit, a drink, and maybe Tom & Jerry on the TV.
Mary passed away in March 2016 at the age of 89, and Jack in October 2021, just 7 weeks away from his 101st birthday.
The church itself closed in 2013 and is now a private residence.
Jack & Mary's photograph collection
The photos I've used in this post are part of Jack and Mary's own collection. After Jack passed away a couple of years ago, drawers, boxes, and suitcases stuffed full of family photographs were found - they were keen photographers with even tiny moments in everyday life captured.
Over 3,000 images have been scanned from prints and negatives which I'll talk a bit more about in next week's blog post, Preservation.
References
Monk, Robert, et al. (2015-2023). GENUKI: URC (was Wesleyan Methodist), Three Mile Cross, Wesleyan Methodist. Retreived 2024-03-03 from https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/BRK/SpencersWood/URCwasWesleyanMethodist.
Spencers Wood Local History Group. (2013). A history of Three Mile Cross Methodist Church. Spencers Wood: Spencers Wood Local History Group. http://swlhg.co.uk/index.php/studies/a-history-of-three-mile-cross-methodist-church/