Richard Rennison led to the Marriage (Scotland) Act 1939, which outlawed the process of "irregular marriages". When the new law came into force in 1940, Rennison had performed 5,147 marriages. His role then changed to a symbolic one, "blessing" marriages and acting as caretaker of the forge. He also regularly appeared at court to ensure the marriages he performed were judicially recognised. Richard Rennison Richard Rennison (29 October 1889 – 5 August 1969) was the last "anvil priest" at Gretna Green, Scotland. Between 1926 and 1940, he performed "irregular marriages" of couples over the anvil at the Old Blacksmith Shop, where the
Alexander Colquhoun-Stirling-Murray-Dunlop legal points introduced important practical amendments of the laws, the most interesting, perhaps, being that which put a stop to Gretna Green marriages. Some of his measures bore on social improvement, one of them being an act to facilitate the erection of dwelling-houses for the working classes, and another an act to render reformatories and industrial schools more available for vagrant and destitute children, well known as Dunlop's Act. The most chivalrous of his parliamentary services was an attack (19 March 1861) on the government of Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, which he had usually supported, in connection with