I came across this newspaper headline in the Halifax Courier (15/03/1922) and was intrigued enough to do some further digging into our local bigamists. Until the mid-1920s, it was difficult, scandalous, and expensive to get a divorce. As a result of this, there appear to have been quite a few cases of people remarrying bigamously. The Matrimonial Causes Act 1923 enabled either partner to petition for divorce due to their spouse’s adultery (previously, only the man had been able to do this).
A further Matrimonial Causes Act in 1937 offered additional legal grounds for divorce: cruelty, desertion, and incurable insanity. Though it was becoming more prevalent, divorce remained uncommon enough to be a potential source of shame throughout the first half of the twentieth century.
The “batch of bigamists” referred to in the Halifax Courier headline were seven men from various towns in West Yorkshire. The men were sentenced to between two- and nine-months hard labour.
The main news story on the same page as the batch, is the trial of Reginald Wilson, a Halifax painter and decorator. Wilson was charged with fraud, forgery, and bigamy. Wilson married a woman named Ruth Annie Holmes in Sunderland whilst still married to his wife Lilian. I found a marriage record on Ancestry between a Ruth Annie Holmes and a Reginald H Henderson in Sunderland in 1921, this could be Wilson using an alias, but I cannot be certain. He left Ruth alone and pregnant when he heard there was a warrant out for his arrest. Wilson was sentenced to four years penal servitude for forgery and 3 years for bigamy, to run concurrently.
In 1929 Wilson was sent to prison again for fraud but appears to have refrained from further bigamy, or at least from getting caught at it.
Another bigamist written about in the Halifax Courier (20/06/1922) is a man named Ellison Belgrave. He is described as “on remand for being a deserter from the army…and further charged with bigamy”. Belgrave was sentenced to 15 months in prison for bigamy. I can find very little historical information on Belgrave, except as an alias of baker and ‘habitual criminal’ Edward Berkley, a Durham native who committed various crimes in West Yorkshire, including Halifax and Luddenden.
The most prominent local bigamist I have come across is George Formby senior, a music hall star (born James Lawler Booth; 4 October 1875 – 8 February 1921). Father of the more famous George Formby; George senior was first married to a music hall singer named Martha Maria Salter in Halifax in 1897, then to Eliza Hoy (the mother of George Formby junior) in 1899. Martha was also later bigamously remarried to a Mr Edmund Taylor. There do not appear to have been any criminal consequences for George or Martha.
The younger George Formby sang, “If the fates on you have cast a spell. And married life don’t suit you well. Just tell your wife to go to bed and let’s all go to Reno… If you come with me, I’ll give you a hunch, how to get a new wife at every lunch.”. Not necessarily bad advice but remember to divorce the old wife first!
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