On 13 April 1903, Robert Marsh and Mary Axe were married at Hardington Parish Church. After the ceremony, the Rector, Rev Cleife, hosted a wedding breakfast for the couple and their friends at the rectory where Mary had worked for five years.[1]

The rector had reason to be grateful to Mary. The previous year, she had given evidence in Cleife’s divorce case, testifying that she had known Mrs Cleife to be alone with Arthur Bingham, the curate, for hours in the morning and at night.[2] He sometimes, she said, “came in without my knowing it.”

Seven weeks after Robert and Mary tied the knot, Robert’s brother, Albert, married Mary’s sister, Emma Jane, at East Chinnock. Their children included Ken Marsh (the father of Roderick and Jennifer) and Kathleen (the mother of Diane).

Robert and Mary had three daughters, one of whom died tragically young.

Mary must have died in the 1920s or early 1930s, but I can find no record of her death.

In 1936, Robert married Evelyn Maud Rendell (nee Hann). She was my great-aunt’s sister-in-law and Joy Mitchell’s grandmother. The 1939 Register shows them living at 332 Rydon.

Evelyn died in 1956, and Robert died in 1957.

References

[1] Western Chronicle, 17 April 1903, p.5.

[2] Western Gazette, 4 July 1902, p.9.