Reading through historic newspapers and court records, it’s hard to believe sometimes that there was anyone living in England in the 19th century who wasn’t committing bigamy. When divorce cost money, and could only be granted for specific reasons, it was often easier when a marriage broke down to end it informally – to separate or simply move on with other people. Although this was easier for men than women to do (wives often having the complication of children to maintain, leading to cases of desertion where women had to try and track their husbands down to pay maintenance), both parties could end up living with new partners when their previous spouse was still alive, or even going through a marriage ceremony. In some cases, the bigamous partner might insist that they thought their previous partner had died, and that therefore they could legally marry again. This was not as outlandish an idea as it might seem; communications, although good in the 19th century, were not as quick or easy as our own, and it was fairly common for an individual to be able to seemingly disappear, having moved to a different area, or even different country, to start a new life. Yet communication was also good enough for many a bigamous man or woman to find themselves tracked down and made to account for their actions.

That this was possible given the errors that could creep in to individuals’ biographies, especially their names, is impressive. I’ve been looking at one particular case that received press attention in the 1850s, where the guilty party is listed under various surnames, including Thack, Thick and Turk. His name was in reality none of these, but William Clack, and his was a slightly more unusual case than many of the bigamy cases I’ve studied.

Clack was from Bristol and had married for the first time at St Jude’s Church in the city in 1854, when he was 22. At that time, he was a soldier, and could just about sign his own name. His bride was the illiterate Maryanne Nichols, a plasterer’s daughter. Just four years later, William married again. By this time, he had followed his father into the shoemaking trade, but this isn’t what his marriage certificate said – and it wasn’t the only lie on there. His father’s name had changed from James to John, and his profession from shoemaking in 1854 to brewing. These are, perhaps, understandable; the name might have been misrecorded, and he could reasonably have changed job in the preceding four years. More seriously, however, William was claiming to be a bachelor. If Maryanne had died, he would have been a widower, and there would be no reason to say otherwise.

His bride this time was Mary Minton, 23, and the couple got married at Temple parish church in Bristol on 6 September 1858. Less than a year later, in August 1859, William Clack appeared in court charged with bigamy, the charge having been instigated by his first wife’s complaint.

Yet sympathy did not lie with Maryanne Clack. It emerged that after the 22-year-old William had married her, he found out that she had a criminal record, and that she had committed another crime after their marriage. For this second crime she was sentenced to transportation. William then met Mary Minton, and had told her the truth: that he had not known his wife was a felon when he married her – that she had lied to him, and then been convicted again and transported. Despite Mary knowing he had a wife still alive, she agreed to marry him. For this first nine months of their marriage, they had been happy, and he had been a good husband to her. However, Maryanne had then been released, and had found out what William Clack had been doing in her absence. Angry, she had accused him of bigamy.

It was not that Maryanne could be a good wife to William. In the time between complaining about William and him appearing in court, she had been convicted of another offence, and this time sentenced to transportation again. The judge in William Clack’s case considered that having a wife who was a thief and a liar was a reasonable excuse for him having committed bigamy, in order to marry an honest woman. He also thought that Clack had given an honest account of what had happened. He felt, therefore, that it was not a case calling for a severe punishment, and sentenced the shoemaker to a single day in prison. However, he then dated the punishment from the start of the assizes, which was a day earlier, meaning that Clack could be released from custody immediately.

William ‘Thack’ pleaded guilty to having committed bigamy at Bristol. The prisoner informed the court that soon after he married his first wife, she was transported for six years. Since that time he had married a second wife and had lived comfortably with her. His first wife returned to this country in April last, and finding he had another wife, preferred the present charge. These facts having been given in evidence, His Lordship said it was a case that did not call for severe punishment; the sentence on William was 24 hours’ imprisonment. As this punishment dated from the commencement of the assizes, the learned judge said the prisoner might be released from custody.

This was a case of bigamy where there was a great deal of understanding and sympathy towards the apparent offender. Although he was theoretically found guilty and punished, the punishment was so lenient that at the end of the case, Thack was able to leave the court and go back to his (second) wife to continue life as before. And he did. The 1861 and 1871 censuses show that William continued to live with Mary, with the couple having two sons – William, born in 1863, and Thomas, a year younger than his brother. Mary joined William in his shoemaking, with the pair working together from their home. They were not rich, and they moved about the country: in 1861, they were working in the Leather Market in Bermondsey, south London, but by 1871, they had returned to live on Bristol’s Old Bread Street.

This was a working-class, immigrant family, for Mary Minton, like all her family, had been born in Ireland. Mary was born there in 1836, and her sister Johanna in 1838. Her father, Thomas, had then brought his young family over to Bristol, where they were living by 1841, with her father working as a carpenter. Subsequent children would be English born. William’s first wife, Maryanne, was conversely a native of Bristol, but from a poor background. She received her first criminal conviction at the shockingly young age of nine, when she was convicted of theft and sent to prison for three months. Maryanne was illiterate, with little education and few chances of a good career. Her early criminal conviction was, perhaps understandably, not her last. Theft was a chance to get money – you could steal something to sell on for cash, or conversely steal something you needed, like food or clothing. Maryanne, therefore, saw theft as a job. She was again convicted of larceny in 1849, three years later, and imprisoned for six months. In 1851, she was again convicted – this time with a friend – and given a nine-month sentence. Then, in April 1855, she was convicted of larceny and sent to prison for four years. There is no mention of being transported at any point in the 1840s or 1850s, so presumably this was the newspapers using a bit of imagination in their reporting of her criminal history.

Maryann must have met William Clack at some point after being released from prison in July 1852. The couple then married in May 1854, but within a year, Maryanne was incarcerated again. While she was in prison this time, William met and married Mary Minton.

We know what happened to William and Mary Clack after the bigamy case, but what about Maryanne? Sadly, her criminal career was not yet at an end. In July 1859, a month before William appeared in court, she was convicted yet again of larceny, and sentenced to six years in prison. She was released in July 1865, but did not get to enjoy a long life on the outside, although next time she was not convicted of theft. Instead, in August 1867, she was charged along with a man named James Macdonald of having in her possession counterfeit coins, knowing them to be counterfeit, with intent to utter (knowingly pass on fraudulent documents). She was found guilty, and sentenced to two years in Gloucester Prison. Maryanne Clack died in Bristol in 1875, after a rather tumultuous life.

What is different in this case to many of the other bigamy cases I’ve studied is that even though William Clack was the offender, admitting that he had married while his first wife was alive, and being convicted of that offence, he was seen as having a valid reason as to why he took this course. Being married to a convicted felon, and worse, being married to a woman who had not told him of her criminal background, was seen as beyond the pale; it was Maryanne who had ‘tricked’ William into marrying her by making out that she was a ‘good’ woman. When she proved not to be – when she showed herself to be a more complex woman whose means of surviving was by thieving – William took it on himself to find someone more suitable, and the court seems to have understood that. Maryanne, meanwhile, despite being a criminal herself, recognised that William had done something illegal and had complained about it. She must have seen the legal system as being against her: William, in her eyes, had got away with his offence, while she continued to spend much of her time at Her Majesty’s pleasure.