Newly available Worcestershire record from 1715 helps 8-great-grandpa mystery

Early November 1715 was not a great time to be getting married. The Jacobite army was in full swing in northern England and that might explain why the marriage record is missing. The parish registers for Chaddesley Corbett seem to be missing from August 1715 up until 1717.

Thomas Kidson's wife Sarah had been buried in April, having borne him several children. His next child would be Hannah Kidson baptised 1718, but there would be unique circumstances surrounding her birth. It was not simple. The picture is murky.

Thomas Kidson became a churchwarden in his home of Kinver, Staffordshire. The population may have been just a few hundred as it went from 1500 to 2000 over the nineteenth centuries. He has several hundred yards of pinfolding (nail making). Thomas's will shows some sense of importance wishing to be interred 'in a decent manner as becomes a person of my degree'. He leaves his property to the sole management of his friend John Hodges. To Mary the mother of Hannah, Richard and James Kidson 'the two beds and beding and four pair of sheets which are in the chamber I now lye', plus more including interest of money that is in Mr Fullilove's hands. Mary is also to receive the tubs and furnace belonging to his brewing business, plus pots kettles saucepans and trenchers. This suggests she ran a public house with him. I think his will was made in contemplation of death. It being July 1740 he'd be 55. There is a nice turn of phrase 'I leave to the discretion of my family now at home all the rest of my effects to be disposed of by my executor'. It starts well, but the sentence was presumably dictated by the said executor, who clearly wanted a free reign and was somewhat trusted by those present.

Thomas had older children Mary, Thomas, John Kidson and Sarah Johnson by his first marriage as a teenager to Sarah Davies.

But in November 1715, a marriage licence appears for 'Thomas Kitson widower age 30 of Kinfare Staffordshire to Jane Barford age 25 spinster of Chaddesley Corbett'. This is another rushed marriage, and it must have ended in tears as Thomas is having my ancestor Hannah barely three years later with a new partner Mary, with whom he lived but to whom he was never legally married.

So at last we have something of an explanation, that Thomas was legally married to someone else, namely Jane.

This record https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/63053/records/97528 
is found in the Worcestershire, England, Marriage Licenses, 1661-1949.