A sample of marriage registers from the parish of Liverpool St. Nicholas Church in England between 1839–1927 is used to examine changing characteristics of grooms who signed with a mark over this period. The proportion of illiterate grooms in the parish fell from about a third to under 5%. Age at marriage and likelihood of being a widower rose markedly for illiterates over the period relative to literate grooms. The percentage of illiterate grooms marrying literate brides rose markedly as well; however, in contrast with national tendencies, there was less evidence of assortative mating by literacy or of any downward trend in this for the Liverpool sample. There was no evident rise in literacy requirements for employment in the transport sector which dominated the Liverpool economy throughout the period under consideration. This implied that even in the first three decades of the 20th century with signature ability almost universal, most illiterate grooms in Liverpool were not in unskilled occupations. However, illiterate grooms were increasingly less likely over time to be in skilled manual occupations.