Publication was equivalent of dating apps

In honour of St Valentine's Day, Eugene Byrne swipes left and right through the not-always- romantic history of a newspaper specifically for well-off lonely hearts which started out in Victorian Bristol.

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N April 1904, Mr Critchel Charlesworth, proprietor of the Matrimonial Post and Fashionable Marriage Advertiser sued a Bristol woman in the county court for £15 "balance alleged to be due for services in connection with a matrimonial introduction.

The plaintiff said that the lady, a widow, had applied to his publication as she was looking for a new husband.

"The gentleman she desired was to be refined, a Dissenter (i.e. non C of E Protestant), and willing to supervise a large garden and pony." (Laughter in court.)

He was to be kindly disposed, and not quarrelsome. A doctor might be suitable.

Mr Charlesworth introduced her to "a gentleman who held a lucrative post abroad", they hit it off and got married.

When both had individually engaged Mr Charlesworth's matchmaking services, they had signed contracts agreeing to pay £10 each. But the document also stipulated that if a marriage took place they were to pay him two and a half percent of the value of their joint property over the sum of £400.

Charlesworth was evidently expecting a big payout. But while they had each handed over their £10, they "declined to carry out the rest of the contract."

The judge found against Charlesworth on a technicality.

The Matrimonial Post and Fashionable Marriage Advertiser (hereafter just Matrimonial Post) was one of the more successful Victorian publications of "lonely hearts" adverts.

A newspaper today would immediately label it "the Victorian Tinder", our forebears' equivalent of the popular dating app. But of course Tinder and other apps like it are simply modern responses to an eternal need.

In Britain, people have been advertising for potential marriage partners since the 18th century. Older readers will remember seeing plenty of "lonely hearts" ads in newspapers and magazines. Some might even have tried the "computer dating" services that were widely advertised in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.