Sunday 31 March 2013

Two Anniversaries

I can't let this month pass without mentioning two March anniversaries.

Friday 22 March 2013

William Corbin & Mary Bentley

Here is another of the updates from 2010. This one gives details of the marriage of William Corbin and Mary Bentley in London in 1810. The update was sent out to mark the 200th anniversary of their marriage. William & Mary were the grandparents of James Bentley Corbin and are our earliest known Corbin ancestors.

We were lucky to be able to celebrate the bicentenary. Ruth, working online with two fellow researchers in England, had 'discovered' Mary Bentley just a year or two earlier. Cath Corbin, reading through some of Ruth's research material early in 2010, noticed the date of the marriage and realised a major anniversary was upon us. And Ray Corbin, who happened to be living in London at the time, joined in with some on-the-spot investigations which revealed exactly where the marriage took place. When the day of the anniversary arrived he was able to stand on the spot where, exactly 200 years earlier, his great-great-great grandparents had been married.

23 JUNE 1810
William Corbin of Hampshire married Mary Bentley of London at the church of St Michael, Crooked Lane, Candlewick Ward, London on 23 June 1810. See marriage record below. (The previous idea that the wedding took place at Cripplegate was incorrect.) William was 'of this parish', i.e. a local resident, at the time of the wedding. The celebrant was a William Ireson. There is nothing familiar about the names of the witnesses - no Corbins - with the family being based out of London perhaps few of them attended.

Record of marriage of William & Mary, 23 June 1810

Church of St Michael
(Extreme right: Crooked Lane)
(Right background: London Monument)

ST MICHAEL, CROOKED LANE
The church of St Michael Crooked Lane was, like St Paul's Cathedral, built by the famous English architect Christopher Wren. Sadly, St Michael's was demolished in 1831 to make way for a new road, King William St, on the approaches to a new version of London Bridge.

St Michael's viewed from Crooked Lane
St Michael's in the path of
new London Bridge


























Ray at the site of St Michael's (yellow outline)
on William & Mary's 200th anniversary, 23 June 2010

Nice that our Corbin story now has a London connection.