Civil Partnership in The United Kingdom - The First Civil Partnerships

The First Civil Partnerships

The first civil partnership formed under the Civil Partnership Act 2004 took place at 11:00 GMT 5 December 2005 between Matthew Roche and Christopher Cramp at St Barnabas Hospice, Worthing, West Sussex. The statutory 15-day waiting period was waived as Roche was suffering from a terminal illness: he died the following day. The first partnership registered after the normal waiting period was held in Belfast on 19 December 2005.

The first partnerships formed in Great Britain, after the waiting period, should have occurred on 21 December, but due to a misinterpretation of the rules, the first in Scotland were held on 20 December. The first civil partnerships in England and Wales were formed on 21 December 2005, with Westminster, Hampshire, Hammersmith and Fulham and Brighton & Hove conducting the largest numbers.

Unusually, the one-hour registration ceremony of the first partnership in the county of Devon, England, (held at Oldway Mansion) was officially witnessed by the Mayor of Torbay and his dignitaries, a hundred international guests, television, radio, and members of the press. The BBC television coverage described it as a “wedding service … was part of English legal history” and in an interview with one of the couple, Peter Scott-Morgan, reported him saying about civil partnership: “People should not pay attention to race, religion or gender – they should be looking at the love."