The best time of the year to get married if you're planning on having a child under the sign of Sagittarius (Australia's own sign) is the month of February. And this is exactly what William Parr and Mary MacCormick did on the 10th of that month in 1788, in what constituted the first marriage in Australia, a ceremony held under the cloudless summer skies of a fortnight-old Sydney.
If you turn up the Bendolba Herald for 7 July 1856 you will see in the Agony Column an announcement that Mr Thomas Snell has departed these earthly shores. Cause of death, declares the notice: "Visitation of God." Now, once a paper like the Bendolba Herald agrees to print a death notice, one assumes that it does not do so without the relevant documents and permits. In this instance, however, it fails to mention the signatory of Mr Snell's death certificate. What the newspaper also fails to mention is that this constitutes the one and only occasion in Australia's history when "Visitation of God" was given as cause of death.
Citizens who enjoy pointing the finger at the barbarity of lesser developed countries will tell you that one of their worst features, or transgressions, or crimes, is the sacrifice of their young to the rapacious motives of men. One of the worst features is also to make statements about other nations without knowing one's own history. But any examination of the records of the registry of births, deaths and marriages will reveal that Doris Frances Glover was married on 24 March 1924 at Taree Police Station - her age at marriage: 11 years. Youngest marriage in Australia, ever.
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