Bedford Soldier in Court on Bigamy Charge

Pavenham, c.1912 [Z1306/87/5/5]

Tuesday 19th February 1918: Albert Victor Herbert, a soldier from Bedford, has appeared at the Maidenhead Police Court on a charge of bigamy. His wife Agnes, the daughter of Thomas Clare of Pavenham, said she married him at the Bedford Registry Office in 1911 and they had two children. Her husband was home on leave last July and wrote frequently. Mabel Haynes, of Norfolk Park Cottages, Maidenhead, said that she met Private Herbert when his regiment was stationed at Maidenhead in January 1916 and started walking out with him. After hearing rumours that he was a married man she questioned him and he denied it. When he went to France he wrote her a letter every day. When the rumours that he was married were repeated he advised her to write to a “Mrs Childs” at Willesden, who told her that Private Herbert was an old friend and a “straight man”, who had been married but was now a widower, his wife having died in childbirth two years ago. After this they arranged to marry on December 22nd last year. The “married man” rumours still continued, and he gave a document supposedly signed by a lieutenant of his regiment certifying that “Herbert was not a married man, as has been stated”. They finally married at Maidenhead Parish Church on 30th January. She stayed with him at Maidenhead for some time before he left for Hitchin, ostensibly to get his discharge; he had since visited her occasionally. Private Herbert was refused bail and was committed for trial at the Assizes. The Mayor remarked on the fact that he gave his age as 21 at the first wedding and 22 at the second, six years later!

Source: Bedfordshire Standard, 22nd February 1922

[1]  Albert Victor Herbert was found guilty of aggravated bigamy at the Berkshire Assizes on 4th June 1918, and was sentenced to prison for 12 months. 

Bigamy in Bedford

Wednesday 16^th August: Annie Emmie Tully (nee Williams), aged 20 years, of Union Street, Bedford, is charged with bigamy at Bedford Borough Sessions. Annie confessed to marrying Private Herbert Parry whilst her husband, Charles Tully, was alive. Annie married Tully on the 14 March 1914 in Llaneley [presumably Llanelly, Monmouthshire], but two years later she married Private Parry of the 2/1^st Brecknocks (South Wales Borderers) at Trinity Church, Bedford. The 2/1^st Brecknocks were billeted at 72 Chaucer Road, two streets away from where Annie lived on Union Street. This marriage was witnessed by a Miss Florence Haddow of Russell Street, Bedford. On the 7^th August, Annie turned herself in and signed a statement in which she testified that Charles Tully had ‘knocked her about’ shortly after getting married, and, several months later during her pregnancy. Her baby had been born dead following a beating and Annie left home, taking the bed sheets to pay for lodgings. Annie returned to her husband upon his request, but found him to be just as violent and so left him for good in January 1915.

Chaucer Road, Bedford, c.1910
 (Bedfordshire Archives and Records Service, ref: Z1306/10/12/1)

Interestingly, Parry testified that he had known Annie for two years, so it would appear they met not long after Annie married Charles Tully in March 1914. It seems likely that Annie met Parry when his regiment was formed in Brecon, Monmouthshire (the regiment served as a ‘home’ regiment and did not serve overseas) in September 1914 and that she followed him and the regiment to Bedford in 1915. It would be an extraordinary coincidence if they both happened to be from the same part of Wales and ended-up a few streets away from each other in Bedford. 

Source: Bedfordshire Times, 18/08/1916