Marital Strife

Marital strife was commonplace in Portsmouth past and surprisingly people could not always hide behind social rank. George Huish, a gentleman and member of a prominent local family, was doubtless horrified when his wife told a magistrate in 1774 ‘that several times in the past week, her husband has kicked her and threatened to stick a knife into her’. In a town with a transient population cases of bigamy were not unknown although, in a time before divorce was generally possible, they appear to have been treated leniently by the courts. Portsmouth Record Office has a superb collection of early court records which have been indexed and transcribed: www.portsmouthrecordsoffice.co.uk