First civil wedding ceremony in Perth

(Reprinted from the Subiaco Post - Page 15 in their February 6, 2010 Edition)

Weddings get the humanist touch

The foreshore of the Swan River in Claremont provided the backdrop for the first civil marriage in Western Australia which happened 36 years ago on February 9.

Laadan Fletcher, the former lay preacher turned humanist who was the celebrant for the pioneering ceremony, turned 90 this month. He recalls how the humanist movement helped usher in a new way for people to get married without going through the church or registry office.

"I feel very proud that I performed the first one in Western Australia,"

Under a section of the Marriage Act and without the need for parliamentary approval, the former Attorney General Lionel Murphy, who was also a humanist, had the power to appoint celebrants other than religous minsters who could carry out secular marriages. "The idea of a civil marriage came from the humanist movement, which he and one or two other members of the Whitlam government belonged to," Dr Fletcher said.

"I was a vice-president of the Humanist Society of WA when we got a letter from Mr Murphy asking us to put forward nominees to become celebrants." "I think it's funny that more weddings now are carried out each year under this part of the Act than are in churches"

Between 1974 and his retirement as a celebrant in 2001, Dr Fletcher would go on to conduct another 700 weddings as well as funeral ceremonies. Dr Fletcher, who was raised in the fundamentalist faith of the Christadelphians in the UK, even went on to become a part-time preacher.

But he abandoned his belief in this and other religions as a young man during World War II. A teacher and lectuer in educational history, Dr Fletcher came to WA in the late 1960s to take up a position with the University of WA.

For many years in UWA, he was the only member of staff with the authority to act as a marriage celebrant on campus for teaching staff and students who wanted to get married there. Ceremonies were held at the back of Hackett Hall in an area known as Tropical Grove as well as in the popular Sunken Gardens.

"I conducted a lot of weddings in those gardens, it is a really beautiful spot." Dr Fletcher said.

NOTE: I had the priviledge on behalf of the Humanist Society of WA Inc. to organise a luncheon to celebrate Laadan's 90th birthday. It was a terrific occasion as attendees to this gathering took the opportunity to share their own individual experiences with Laadan with all present.