six, in the eighteenth century one hundred and sixty-nine and from 1800 to 1812 eighteen.
   It is a little surprising that there were fewer marriages in the eighteenth than in the seventeenth century, especially as the record for the latter cannot be complete. The reason was a curious dearth of weddings, only sixty-eight in number, from 1700 to 1749. The second half of the century made amends for this and might have done still better but for a requirement of Lord Hardwieke ‘a Marriage Act that one at least of the parties should be resident in the parish where the marriage was solemnised. In the past there had certainly been an occasional wedding of non-residents and the usual terseness of the entries may well have concealed ethers. It is impossible to say whether there had been any truly clandestine marriages in Ash before the Act of 1753, but the the parish was sufficiently remote to provide a suitable venue for such ventures.
   The Hardwicke register shows the parishes of residence, the condition of each party (bachelor, widower, spinster, or widow), whether the marriage was by banns or license, and the name of the officiating minister. The parties initialled the register, those without the necessary attainment making their marks. Some chose to sign in full, sundry strange spellings resulting. Two witnesses were required and it is evident that efforts were made to ensure that at least one of them

could write. The services of the parish clerk were usually called in aid for this purpose; Thomas Wellar, Richard Rabson and. William Norris, who successively held that office, appear as witnesses time and again. Rabson soon tired of signing his name and subsequently proferred only initials.
   Both parties to sixty-seven of the marriages entered in the Hariwicke register lived in the parish and. in forty-five marriages one party came from further afield. There were apparently three marriages where neither party belonged to Ash; one at least of these was a travellers’ wedding.
   Assuming that ability to write name or initials signifies literacy, even if some midnight oil may have been burnt in learning to copy one or the other, it would seem probable that by the second half of the eighteenth century more than half of the younger adults in Ash were literate. Where both parties to a marriage were resident in the parish the illiterate were in the majority, but the converse was true of those, nearly all girls, who were wed at Ash to opposite numbers from without the parish. Of parishioners married at Ash during the currency of the Hardwicke register, thirty-six men and fifty-five women, ninety-one in all, were literate and thirty-four men and fifty-four women, eighty-eight in all, illiterate.⁹