Wednesday 23 May 2012

Wedding Wednesday - Ashton & Musk, 1916

Today's daily blogging prompt over at GeneaBloggers is 'Wedding Wednesday', and I wanted to share the marriage certificate of John William Ashton and Gertrude Constance Musk. I was lucky enough to discover this certificate, when I decided to start tracing our family history only a few short weeks ago, in a box of old photographs and certificates which we inherited from Mark's mum. The marriage was solemnised at the Zion Congregational Church in the District of Chorlton, in the County of Lancaster, in the UK. I haven't done any research about this church (to see, for instance, if it still stands or is even still in use and has a congregation), but that is definitely on the cards for future exploration.
The groom has listed, under occupation, "Lieutenant A.O.D. (schoolmaster)". Some (very) basic preliminary research led me to an article on Wikipedia about the Royal Army Ordnance Corps. The article says the RAOC was created when, in 1918, the Army Ordnance Department (AOD) and Army Ordnance Corps (AOC) amalgamated in 1918 (which in turn, in 1993, was "one of the corps that amalgamated to form the Royal Logistic Corps"). The article explains the RAOC "dealt only with the supply and maintenance of weaponry, munitions and other military equipment". It would be interesting to research service records for John Ashton further and find out exactly what his role in the Corps entailed.
The certificate shows not only that the bride's father, a congregational minister, presided over the ceremony, but that her sister Kathleen was one of the witnesses.
As usual, click the image for a larger view.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the welcome - it really is inspiring and informative!

    ReplyDelete