The parish records show that a dozen weddings occurred during the early 1840s.  The letters refer to a handful.  In most cases, the people mentioned belong to the social class or circle of the Slades.  Martha Curtis, the daughter of the village clerk, was a favourite servant of Mrs Lawson: she married George Baker in 1840, only to feature in the account of deaths within three years.  Ann Ball, possibly a relative of the Slades, gives up as the schoolmistress to marry William Warmington according to the letters.  Their union occurred in 1841. The bulk of mentions in the letters, however, relate to the courtship of Jane Fuller by George Noad, the curate, the endless courtships of Kezia Slade and her eventual marriage to Wellingham Fuller, and the courtship of Martha Fuller by John Breach, the doctor.  Other references to courtship and weddings mostly relate to the extended Slade family, for example the joint wedding of the Axford sisters in 1841.  We also hear about the grand society weddings that tied the Maitland and Valpy families together, brother to sister and sister to brother.  The letters present the courtship of Jane Fuller and Kezia Slade as a story, each with its own interesting aspects. 

In the case of Jane Fuller, the daughter of the Lord of the Manor, and defender of the Dissenters, we learn of her terrible difficulty to persuade her parents to agree to the match.  George Noad seems to have had good linkage, his cousin was George Canning, but perhaps the Fullers did not like either his politics or his religion.  The events of the courtship become entwined in the attempts of Mr Noad to revive his ecclesiastical audience.  He uses devices to tempt people into his church: heat, new musical instruments, the wonderful voice of his young sister.  These efforts apparently bore fruit.  For these reasons, perhaps to the Fullers George Noad posed no little threat to the religious culture of the villages.  This, in turn, would have posed a danger for their control over the villages.  But, in this case, love conquers all and Jane won through in her determination to have Mr Noad.  Outside observers thought they made a model couple.  Perhaps a deal was struck between George Noad and the Fullers, for Mr Noad leaves the village and moves north to become a schoolmaster in Hull, setting up house with his new wife.

We have already looked in some detail at the courtship of Kezia Slade.  Clearly an attractive person, she did not lack for suitors.  Nor did her relationships lack for interest and spark.  Her eventual rejection of Mr Davy caused a number of rows and recriminations between the two families.  Mr Davy’s cousin took the extreme steps of reporting Kezia’s behaviour to the Valpy family.  We follow the progress of Mr Forsayth, seen by some as an adventurer with an eye to the main chance, as he courts Kezia.  Eventually, he even seems to have taken up residence in the Slade family home, but all to no avail, for he disappears from sight and Kezia eventually marries Wellingham Fuller.  Again, we might find surprise in this, because the Slades did not attend Meeting, although Charlotte’s religious outlook was broad.  The records do not show any other linkage between these two dynasties, previous or post.  We may wonder about any future commercial unions envisaged between the two families.  Sadly, Kezia dies quite soon after the marriage, their only offspring a daughter.

The other dynastic union traced by the letters linked the Fuller and Breach families, the farmer and the doctor.  Elsewhere we have speculated on the commercial struggle between Doctors Breach and Workman, resulting in success for the former, leaving the latter, the Slades’ son-in-law, to leave town.  It is interesting to see how the Fullers themselves pursued a policy of inbreeding, or marrying within the immediate environment.  Their son marries a Slade, the other large farming family, and a daughter marries the local doctor.  Perhaps also they argued against the marriage to George Noad precisely because he was an outsider.  We have seen elsewhere how inbreeding seemed to prevail amongst the agricultural labourers who tilled their soil.

Unfortunately no letters survive in which the marriages of these people occurred, so we have no first-hand evidence of a Berkshire farming wedding in the 1840s.