Marriage

Joseph Clover around the time of his marriage

On the 2nd November, 1869 Joseph Clover married Mary Anne Hall (1839 - 1929), at St Margaret's. Westminster . Mary Anne was an artist, and the daughter of a minister, the Reverend Thomas Grainger Hall.. She and Joseph  had hoped to marry at St Peters  but geography was not in their favour.

 "I said you lived in Victoria Street so that I supposed St Peters would do - as some of the street was certainly in that parish. The man looked at the map & said "No Only a very few houses in Victoria St are in the parish of St Peters and unless you are prepared to swear in which parish you or the lady resides or will reside for 15 days before the marriage you cannot have the licence. So then I said "make it out for Westminster" I am sure neither you nor I would like to swear to what we know was incorrect. Of course, if you can sleep in Mr North's house - or if it can be explained that by daily occupying a house in St Peters you are legally a resident there I will have the licence altered there will be no difficulty at all about that. My own opinion is that we must submit to an inconvenience that many other people have to put up with in order to obey the law." (1)

They had five children. The first child, Francis (6 Jan 1871- 13 Feb 1873), died just after his second birthday. Three brothers followed - Martin (1871-1960), Alan (1873-1955) and Harry (1874-1923), and then Mary (1876-1965). Sadly Joseph died while the children were all still quite young.

1.         Clover JT. Letter from Joseph Clover to Mary Anne Hall. Wellcome Library;  October 15,1869. MS 6942 13-24

Mary Anne Hall (left) at the time of her engagement. Note on back of picture says "...pictured with her best friend..." Courtesy of the Woodward Biomedical Library. British Columbia University. Vancouver.

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