How Many witnesses?

In the recent newsletter (received today 15 October 2020) Peter asked "How many witnesses?" Thirteen members of the family had signed the marriage register. Well a few years ago I was trying to track back to the marriage of my 3x great grandparents through their daughter Mary Ann Morris (from Thatcham Berks), whilst looking through the records in the Berkshire Archives and found something that surprised me. The declaration of marriage for Thomas Morris and Ann Talwin Shewell in the Society of Friends records. I thought the document was wonderful, part official declaration and part personal declaration and this was signed by the bride and groom and forty two other people. Fourteen under a heading Relations and the other twenty eight to the left of the form so I guess friends of the couple at the declaration service.

I took a copy in case it was family (I live in the North of England so can't just pop down) however, I was unable to confirm the link to my tree, but as I was so taken by the personal declarations I have kept the copy. Definitely not one for happening under Covid restrictions, the queue to sign would have been interesting and stretched a fair way (over 120m with social distancing).