Intentions to Marry, 1892

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840404, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Imaged by Luke at Archives NZ Wellington, May 28 2025

Page 543

District of Lyttelton Quarter ending 30 September 1892

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Folio	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
27	15 July 1892	George Henry King Emily Shrimpton	George Henry King Emily Shrimpton 💍 1892/2545	Bachelor Spinster	Labourer	52 years 30 years	Lyttelton Lyttelton	20 years 4 years	Church of Holy Trinity, Lyttelton	92/2581		15 July 1892	Rev. E. Coates, Anglican Minister
28	23 July 1892	John Harry Collins Elizabeth Hannah Burnip	John Harry Collins Elizabeth Hannah Burnip 💍 1892/2551	Bachelor Spinster	Shop Keeper	31 years 23 years	Lyttelton Lyttelton	24 years 15 years	House of John Harry Collins, Lyttelton, Canterbury Street	92/2586		23 July 1892	Rev. A. Treadwell, Presbyterian Minister
29	23 July 1892	John Haydon Alice Hannah Lillian O'Brien	John Haydon Alice Hannah Lillian OBrien 💍 1892/2664	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	30 years 22 years	Lyttelton Lyttelton	29 years 20 years	St. Joseph's Church, Lyttelton	92/2896		23 July 1892	Rev. W. B. Purlin, Roman Catholic Minister
30	28 July 1892	Alfred Westlake Alice Screes	Alfred Westlake Alice Scrus 💍 1892/2496	Bachelor Spinster	Carter	30 years 22 years	Lyttelton Screes, London, St. Lyttelton	30 years 1 month	House of Mrs Screes, London, St. Lyttelton	92/2589		28 July 1892	Rev. A. Treadwell, Presbyterian Minister
31	3 August 1892	George Hood Sarah Robinson	George Hood Sarah Robinson 💍 1892/2547	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 years 22 years	Lyttelton Lyttelton	4 days 4 days	St. Saviour's Church, Lyttelton	92/2582		3 August 1892	Rev. E. E. Chambers, Anglican Minister
32	8 August 1892	Thomas Blatchford Harriet Pellow	Thomas Blatchford Harriet Peller 💍 1892/2552	Bachelor Spinster	Prison Warder Milliner	40 years 20 years	Lyttelton Lyttelton	6 months 7 days	Home of Alexander Provide, Oxford, St. Lyttelton	92/2587		8 August 1892	Rev. A. Treadwell, Presbyterian Minister
33	9 August 1892	William James Robert Lowcay Frances Emily Jane Lowcay		Bachelor Spinster	Permanent Militia	31 years 22 years	Lyttelton Lyttelton	2 years 2 years	St. Saviour's Church, Lyttelton	92/2583		9 August 1892	Rev. E. E. Chambers, Anglican Minister
34	19 August 1892	Alexander Wait Purvis Mary Wetherall Kempsie	Alexander Wait Purvis Mary Witherall Dempsie 💍 1892/2485	Bachelor Spinster	Drill Instructor School Teacher	28 years 20 years	Lyttelton Lyttelton	21 days 20 years	House of John Currie, Kempsie, Fishpond Road, Lyttelton	92/2588	John Currie, Father of Bride	19 August 1892	Rev. A. Treadwell, Presbyterian Minister
35	30 August 1892	Albert Edgar Hardy Emily Edith Bacon	Albert Edgar Hardy Emily Edith Bacon 💍 1892/2549	Bachelor Spinster	Clerk	29 years 19 years	Lyttelton Lyttelton	2 years 19 years	House of Thomas Bacon, Exeter, St. Lyttelton	92/2584	Thomas Bacon, Father of Bride	30 August 1892	Rev. H. Finsley, Wesleyan Minister

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

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What is an Intention to Marry?

The 1854 Marriage Act required Pakeha settlers (and later Maori) to register their intention to marry from 1855. The resulting Notices of intention to marry were sent by the district registrars to the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages and bound into large volumes, each containing a year of notices. These registers were eventually deposited with Archives New Zealand.

What information does an ItM record?

A typical Intention to Marry notice records:

the bride and groom's full names
occupation of the groom (and sometimes the bride)
their ages
district where the marriage would take place
how long they had resided in the district
Where the marriage would take place (eg, a specific church)
Who would officiate the marriage (eg, a minister)
The date of the notice and also a date when the certificate was issued. Marriages had to take place within 3 months, and usually occurred within a week or so of the certificate date.
If one of the parties was under 21, a parent who consented to their marriage was usually specified

These details can provide clues for genealogical and historical research. Knowing the date and district makes it easier to look for wedding notices in Papers Past, and the amount of time that the parties had resided in a district can offer clues to whether a person was born in NZ, or when they immigrated.

However, finding individual records in the Intentions to Marry registers was typically a slow and manual process, usually requiring an in-person visit to Archives NZ's Wellington office (during limited opening hours) and using a handwritten card catalogue index to look up individual names.

Eight years of the registers had been digitised by Archives NZ prior to 2024, but even these digital versions required the use of a manual index and usually examining several pages to locate specific records.

What is the Intentions to Marry Project?

This project aims to transcribe the New Zealand Intentions to Marry registers (from 1855 to 1925) with the assistance of new technology (AI), making the records freely available and easily searchable.

The ITM records have also been cross-referenced with the registered marriages at DIA Births, Deaths and Marriages, where possible (a small fraction of the recorded intentions to marry did not become a registered marriage).

Currently we have almost all records between 1855 and 1894. More registers will be added as the project continues.

The project is led by Luke Howison, a web developer who made the free genealogical research search tool NZ Ancestor Search Helper and Archway-style Collections Search. There are also some wonderful volunteers assisting with digitising the registers.

Can I volunteer to help?

Yes, you can! You can sign up to correct errors in the transcribed records and match ITMs with registered marriages.

I am also looking for Wellington-based volunteers to help me digitise more years of the registers. I can provide lighting equipment and a 'clicker' (to trigger your phone's camera).

How is the transcription done?

There are several steps to digitising and transcribing the records:

Digitising the registers (taking clean, straight, high-quality photos)
Processing the digitised pages by straightening, cropping and sharpening the images
Transcribing each page with a combination of AI tools
Matching each ITM with a registered marriage when possible
Human verification of the transcribed information

The main LLM (AI) used are the Google Gemini Pro and Flash models, which have excellent 'Vision' capabilities, and a generous free tier.

Archives NZ has released the register years they have digitised (1865-69, 1872, 1874 and 1880) under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.

The Intention to Marry registers (up to 1925) are more than 100 years old, so their Crown Copyright has expired, putting them in the public domain. This also applies to any 'mechanical reproductions' (eg, pictures or photocopies) of their content without substantial alteration.

The transcribed records on this website are released under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal license, which allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, even for commercial purposes, while giving credit to the creator (NZ Intentions to Marry Project).