May I make a few clarifications?

The (Anglican) Cathedral's Lady Chapel, or 'Shrewsbury Chapel', formerly had a screened-off space at the East end, where now the pre-Reformation altar again stands, which was said to belong to the Duke of Nolfolk (and before that, the Earls of Shrewsbury). As Lord of the Manor, he probably had legal obligations towards the upkeep of the whole of the church's east end, but I doubt whether that was enforced. I don't believe that interments were made in the chapel during the period that the Dukes professed Catholicism, nor have I heard of marriages being celebrated there, either before or after the 1753 Marriage Act.

From then until 1837 (the implementation of the 1836 Marriage Act) no marriage in England was considered valid (with the exceptions as mentioned by others) unless solemnised in an Anglican church, by an Anglican priest. I have tried to research the families of John Curr (1756-1823) and his brother George (my ancestor), and it seems that the usual practice was that a wedding ceremony was celebrated in the Norfolk St Chapel (which was completely rebuilt in 1816), then, possibly on the next day, an Anglican service was held in the Parish Church (now Cathedral), and afterwards a reception was held, to which the clergy of both churches were invited. The second service was the one that counted in English Law, but the first was required to satisfy RC Canon Law.

John Curr, who was for many years the Supervisor of the Duke's Sheffield collieries, was also partly responsible for the building of the Chapel of Our Lady, of which the Sheffield Archives have an engraving print (not a photograph, I think). His acquisition of extra land, to provide a small churchyard, also enabled the construction, 30 years later, of the present (Cathedral) Church of St Marie. Unfortunately, in that construction, John Curr's grave was subsumed into the new church (designed by Curr's son-in-law's first cousin), but until the past forty years or so, an inscription was said to be visible in the porch.

On the 26th January, the day before the bicentenary of the Engineer's death, I left a framed copy of that inscription (translated from the Latin of John's son, the Revd Joseph Curr), propped up in the porch. As far as I know, it's still there.

Geoffrey White
(Retired Rector of Norton).

Hi All,
The following short excerpt from Wikipedia about St.Marie's, may help explain. A more detailed account can be read on Wikipedia and some of their links:

Sheffield Catholics bought the ageing house, which stood on the corner of Fargate and Norfolk Row. They built a small chapel in its back garden on a site which is now between the Mortuary and the Blessed Sacrament Chapels. The names of the priests who served Sheffield before the cathedral was built and the dates of their deaths are on the wall of the Mortuary Chapel. The rest of the land where the cathedral now stands became a cemetery. (Bodies from the cemetery were moved to the new Catholic cemetery at St Bede's in Rotherham and work on St Marie's began in 1846.)

Prior to Henry V111 (c.1534) the present Anglican Cathedral of SS. Peter & Paul (or just St.Peter's as it was originally called) was a Roman Catholic place of worship for Sheffield.
The house (referred to above and owned by the Duke of Norfolk) was at the corner of Fargate/Norfolk Row. During the Reformation, the house had a chapel hidden in the roof, after the Reformation the chapel was in the back garden. Then in 1846 work began on St.Marie's Cathedral and completed in 1850.
HAPPY HUNTING:sleuth_or_spy:

Hi

Aaaaah that explains and clears up a lot then.Thank you.

Many apologies for mine, my family's, and my ancestors walking over that grave plate in that entrance area in St Marie's Cathedral and wearing it out. It is a wonderful feeling to know that the place I was married was the same place as my parents, and a lot of my ancestors in Sheffield, some of which, on my so called assumed English side, I only found out recently were catholic and married and or baptised on that site (chapel or church) for many many years in early Sheffield. So were likely to be even earlier Irish immigrants than the wave from the famine via Liverpool much later. But then those thrills and feelings of belonging are what family history is all about.

Love it....keep up the good work y'all!!! With our eternal gratitude.