Discover whether any of your ancestors were married in the diocese of Westminster, London, England. These records cover over four centuries of marriages in around 40 parishes. We have provided a list of all the parishes in this collection to help your family history research.
This record set comprises almost 1.4 million marriages from 44 Anglican parishes in Westminster. Marriage records are an essential part of researching your family history. Most of the records from the nineteenth century through to the twentieth century will include the names of the couple’s fathers. Marriage records can often be the key to finding out the names of the generation before. Occasionally, ages of the couple may be listed as "full" rather than as a figure. This was a customary way of noting that they were over the required legal age of 21.
These records belong to the Westminster Collection, a unique set of records spanning baptisms, marriages, and burials, which document the history of the City of Westminster and its people. These records are made available in association with City of Westminster Archives Centre.
St James’ Church, Piccadilly, is among the many parishes included in Westminster marriages. On 4 October 1940, incendiary bombs were dropped on the church. The roof collapsed and the stained glass windows were shattered. The bombs hit the rectory and trapped the verger and his wife inside the kitchen. The couple was trapped for 12 hours before they were rescued. Unfortunately, they both died from the injuries they sustained during the attack. The bombs were a part of the first phase of the Blitz on London during the Second World War.
Services at St James’ resumed in 1941 with a temporary roof. The roof was not completely repaired until 7 years later. In the marriage registers, we can see that the last marriage to take place in the church before the Blitz was on 14 September 1940. After that date, the register shows two marriages as taking place at St Peter’s, Great Windmill Street. The next wedding at St James’ was between Leslie Prissell and Elizabeth Yoxall on 29 June 1941. The register states that the couple was married in ‘the south aisle, having been repaired’.