Adoption ******** Although adoption and fostering have taken place informally for centuries, it was only in 1927 that adoption became legally recognised in Britain, although the word itself was sometimes used for guardianship or fostering. Before 1927 it was an informal affair and although some evidence may be found in Poor Law records, material may be hard to locate and confirm unless information is given on probate records. Often the children were placed into families that needed extra labour and had more financial resources to care for them. The child usually retained his or her original surname but not always. 18th and 19th century novels frequently feature romantic stories of orphans, benefactors and guardians but in fact, apart from rare wardship and guardianship proceedings which only the rich could afford, the only adopted children with any legal status prior to 1926 were those placed for adoption under the 1899 poor act by the Boards of Guardians. Other children living as family with people who were not their parents remained the legal responsibility of their natural parents. Any private arrangements before 1927 are not easy to find, although some charities such as Dr Barnardos did arrange adoptions and they will search their own records (for a fee of course). Since 1927, nearly a million people have been adopted. Initially, adoptions were seen as a way of providing security for war orphans and children born to unmarried mothers. The 1960s and 1970s saw major changes in adoption, fostering and childcare practices. While the number of babies available for adoption fell rapidly because of improved birth control and changing public attitudes, adoption practice changed its focus to finding families for children with 'special needs', such as those in local authority care who had been abused, neglected or had physical or learning disabilities. Adoption is now a strictly regulated legal procedure in which all parental responsibility for a child is transferred. An adopted child loses all legal ties with his or her birth parents and becomes a full member of the new family, usually taking on their surname. They lose all rights in their original families property, land or any will bequests (unless specifically named, and then it's open to question), but they do acquire full rights to their adopting families property, land or any will bequests. Most children available for adoption are in local authority care, either with foster parents or in a children's home. Sometimes step-parents adopt the child from the previous marriage of their new husband or wife. In other cases, people often adopt the child of a close relative. Adoption law is set out in the 1976 Adoption Act and 1989 Children Act. However, most of the detailed procedures are laid down in guidance for Social Services rather than in law. Those wishing to adopt a child must be aged over 21 and able to show that they can give the child the care he or she needs. Decisions are made by an adoption agency, which is normally a local authority - but adoption is sometimes arranged by a voluntary agency. The Adoption register is not open to public search or inspection, but adopted persons of 18 years and above and parents can apply to receive an adoption certificate. It is also possible to obtain some information by using an intermediary agency to help you trace a birth relative or someone in your family who was adopted. The fee for the service depends on the agency. You can use an intermediary agency if: YOU were adopted before 30 December 2005 A birth relative of YOURS was adopted before 30 December 2005 When an intermediary agency finds a person, you can only contact them if they agree to it. If they don't agree, the agency won't tell you their name or whereabouts but might be able to share some information, like: their domestic or family circumstances their general health and well-being Banns ***** The Banns of Marriage, commonly known simply as the "banns" or "bans" (from a Middle English word meaning "proclamation," rooted in Old French). In general it is the ecclesiastical announcement of the names of persons contemplating marriage. Its object is to enable anyone to raise any canonical or civil legal impediment to the marriage, so as to prevent marriages that are invalid. Impediments vary between legal jurisdictions, but would normally include a pre-existing marriage that has been neither dissolved nor annulled, a vow of celibacy, lack of consent, or the couple's being related within the prohibited degrees of kinship. Incidentally, it makes known to all duly interested in the latter the fact of its near celebration. Banns were announced in the home parishes for the parties involved for three Sundays in a row. In some places, the words once spoken by the priest were: "I publish the banns of marriage between (Name of party) of the Parish of........ and (Name of other party) of this Parish. If any of you know cause or just impediment why these persons should not be joined together in Holy Matrimony, ye are to declare it. This is for the (first, second, third) time of asking." To dispense with banns required a marriage licence. Both banns and licences were valid for 3 months. In 1753, Hardwicke's Marriage Act brought Banns Registers into regular use, sometimes in separate books, sometimes in the parish marriage registers. A comparatively small number of Banns Books survive, the requirement to register banns continued until 1812. A banns record by itself is of course no guarantee that the marriage itself actually took place. People could always change their minds at the last minute, or parents might have stepped in to stop minors marrying, or previous spouses have come forward to prevent a bigamous marriage, the list goes on. Marriages are sometimes said to take place "by certificate", before 1837 that would likely mean that one party came from another parish and had to provide written evidence (a certificate) that the banns had properly been called in the other parish too, and no objection made. After 1837 it may refer to a Registrar's certificate issued after notice of the intended marriage had been posted for the requisite 3 weeks in the RO, and when the marriage subsequently took place in a church. Bastardy Bonds ************** Illegitimacy was not unusual in earlier centuries, or for people to marry after a child was born. If a child was born to an unmarried mother then the parish records might not name the father although the parish overseer would have been keen to know who he was in view of the need to make him liable for the child's maintenance. Bastardy bonds are the rarest of the documents associated with paternity and illegitimacy and had almost died out by the 1830s. A bastardy bond was a guarantee that someone other than the parish poor law authorities would pay for the maintenance of an illegitimate child and were only used in specific cases. An example would be where a putative father had absconded, or where the putative father was of comfortable financial means. There would be very little point in bonding a poor ag-lab for instance, unless he could find a bondsman to act for him. No money actually changed hands unless the bond defaulted. In such a case, the bondsman would have to pay the agreed amount to the overseer of the poor. Records of bastardy bonds might be found amongst the parish poor law records, the vestry minute books or even the records of quarter sessions. The most likely place to find these is the relevant county archives office [RO], they will at least know what material is extant and where. The range of documents, mostly deposited in the parish chest, include the Bastardy Examination, Bastardy Warrants And Summons, Bastardy Order, Maintenance Order and the Bastardy Bond. The Warrant gave the order for the father to appear in court if he attempted to abscond. Where disputes over payments occurred, the case papers may be found in the Petty Sessions records, although very few records remain. Agreements and discussions of individual cases can be found in the records of the churchwarden, parish constable, overseers of the poor and amongst the vestry papers. In many cases the father married the mother soon after the birth of the child or made private arrangements for the child's upkeep, in which case no record will be found of his name amongst the bastardy documents. It was not uncommon for a married couple to assign a family surname as a middle name. However, in the event of an unmarried mother giving the illegitimate child a surname as a middle name, this could indicate the paternity of the child. It worth looking for the will of the father of a bastard as illegitimate children had to be acknowledged as such in the will, often described as the ‘reputed' son. The Family Law Reform Act of 1969 gave illegitimate children equal inheritance rights. Divorce ******* In 1857, Lord Halsbury defined divorce as: "the dissolution of marriage with the right thereafter to marry another person while the former spouse still lives" A divorce in England and Wales could only be secured by the passing of a private Act of Parliament until the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857. This became effective from 1858, a divorce could now be granted by the new civil Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes. (absorbed into the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the Supreme Court in 1873, becoming in 1970 the Family Division of the Supreme Court). From 1858, a husband could obtain a divorce because of his wife's adultery. But until 1925 a wife had not only to prove adultery but also that it had been aggravated by the husband's cruelty or other offences such as bigamy or desertion for 2 years. There were c150 divorces annually by 1860, and c800 annually by 1914. In that latter year an Act made divorce more widely available after WWI. Further legislation such as the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1937, which greatly extended the grounds for divorce, meant that by 1939 there were c8,000 divorces annually and over 20,000 annually by 1950. The latter increase followed the need for Government to make the divorce process easier and less costly in the chaotic aftermath of the return of British servicemen from WW2 to find that many lonely wives had been fraternising in their absence with US servicemen based here. The Divorce Reform Act of 1969 made the irretrievable breakdown of a marriage the sole grounds for divorce, the court to be satisfied that there had been either adultery, unreasonable behaviour, desertion for 2 years or separation for 5 years (2 where the other party consented to the action). The 1857 Act also gave powers to Assize Courts to hear petitions and eventually a lot of divorces were dealt with locally. From 1873 the District Courts of the Supreme Court had similar powers, as did from 1967 the County Courts for undefended cases. There are at the National Archives indexes of divorce petitions available for searching, these relate to petitions not decrees. There is a Central Index of Decrees Absolute granted by courts in England & Wales since 1858 held at the Principal Registry of the Family Division at First Avenue House, London. Fleet and Irregular marriages 1667 to 1774 ****************************************** These irregular or clandestine marriages were a marriage conducted by an ordained clergyman, but without banns or licence. Although they breached canon law, these marriages might still be legally valid, and could be recognised as such in English Common Law. The marriages were normally performed outside the home parishes of the bride and groom, and originally took place in prison chapels, though they were not necessarily disreputable in any way. Clandestine venues and ceremonies allowed the couple to avoid the trouble and expense of an ecclesiastical licence and afforded them some degree of privacy. Many of these clandestine marriages took place in local taverns and coffee houses. These so called 'marriage shops' could also be found in the grounds of the May Fair Chapel and the King's Bench prison and other centres such as the Holy Trinity, Minories and St. James, Dukes Place. It is estimated that in the 1740s over half of London's marriages took place in 'marriage shops' with about 800,000 people named in the marriage records and about 2400 people mentioned in baptismal records. Many nonconformists married in this manner often in their own meeting houses. The most notorious of these venues was an area in the vicinity of the Fleet prison in London known as the Liberty of the Fleet and the registers are collectively referred to as the Fleet Registers, though many were maintained by individuals and at locations beyond the Fleet prison and its surrounds. The Fleet Registers record more than 200,000 marriages (and some baptisms) performed in the Liberty of the Fleet but also at the King's Bench prison, the May Fair Chapel and the Mint, between 1667 and 1754, the year in which Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act came into force, making it a legal requirement to be married in the Church of England, though Quakers were exempt from this law. It has been estimated that in the 1740s, nearly 15% of all marriages in England were celebrated in the Fleet. Most of the parties, not surprisingly, came from London and neighbouring counties. Because of their irregular nature, the registers and notebooks in the Fleet Registers series need to be used with care. The information in them is not always reliable, with some duplicated entries and others that are known to be forged. The Fleet Registers are found in record series RG 7 in the National Archive and take the form of registers and notebooks. As the Hardwicke's Act of 1754 that stopped the practise in England did not apply in Scotland, English 'runway' couples were able to obtain a valid marriage certificate in the Scottish border towns such as Ayton, Chain Bridge, Coldstream, Gretna Green, Halidon Hill, Ladykirk, Lamberton, Mordington, Norham and Paxton. Less well known areas for 'irregular' marriages were the coaching inns in the Canongate district of Edinburgh and South Leith marriages which are transcribed in Marshall's Calendar of Irregular Marriages in the South Leith Kirk Sessions Records 1697-1818. The English Episcopal Chapels in Scotland during the 19th century also married English runaways. Illegitimacy ************ Everyone is going to have at least one of their family lines come to an abrupt halt because of an illegitimate birth, Mark Herber in his book "Ancestral Trails" gives a figure of 2% of all birth in the early 18th century were illegitimate. However all is not lost because such an event can lead to a paper trail generated by officials as they attempt to locate the father and have him pay towards the upkeep of the child rather than the mother & child be supported from the poor rate. All of this creates documents that can be of great help in researching your family history. Children whose parents weren't married were referred to in parish papers in a number of way; illegitimate, base born, bastard, natural born. Sometimes in christening registers the father is named, but often only the mother's name is given. Depending on the cleric concerned a note in the margin may make some comment about the mother and the circumstances of the birth. These comments are often of a vitriolic nature... Once an unmarried woman was discovered to be pregnant a train of events was started. Firstly the parish officials or Justices would convene and the mother would be required to declare who the father was, if the named man denied the accusation he might bring forward witnesses to bear out his declaration that he wasn't the father. Once the father was established there was several options, the first and much preferred by the officials was that the couple should marry as soon as possible so that the child was legitimate at birth and supported by the father. A lump sum payment may be made that would cover the cost of the birth and upkeep of the child or a regular payment was ordered to be made to cover all costs. If the payment was made voluntarily then there will, sadly, be no paperwork left for us to find, it is only those fathers who had to be coerced into taking responsibility that leave documentation behind. 1576 An Act enabled JP's to examine the circumstances of an illegitimate birth in an attempt to discover who the father was and to order him to pay maintenance. 1610 Mothers of illegitimate children could be sent to the House of Correction for up to 1 year. 1732/3 An Act passed requiring women pregnant with an illegitimate child to declare to the authorities that she was carrying a child and who the father was. This act also prohibited the sending back to their home parish a pregnant unmarried woman. 1743/4 An illegitimate child's parish of settlement was the same as its mother's, not that of its father's. The mother could not be moved back to her parish of settlement until at least a month after the birth. 17th – 18th century Mothers could also be whipped for having an illegitimate child. Between 1837 and 1965 it is reckoned about 4% to 7% of births were illegitimate, it is therefore not unusual to come across one or two in one's family research. The surname of any child [which can be any name the parents desire] has only been entered in the register (and hence on a birth certificate) since 1 April 1969. Before that date it was inferred from the parents' name. Column 2 of the birth certificate merely says "Name, if any", whereas column 4, for example, asks for "Name, and surname of father". The surname of a father of an illegitimate child rarely appears on the register, the space being blank, only the mother's name is usually given. Before 1875, the mother was allowed to name any man as the father; he was not required to acknowledge paternity. From 1875, a man could only be named as the father if he consented and was present at the registration. If a father is not named, further research might involve the parish or poor law union records. If an illegitimate ancestor used the mother's surname, but the birth is not found under that name, it is possible it was registered under the father's name after all, possibly with his agreement despite not being married to the mother. As a mother was apparently not required to present proof that she was married, it is also possible that a registration was sometimes made on the basis that she pretended she was married. In which case it would be worth searching the surname of any future husband, or, say, any male living in the same premises on a census return. An illegitimate child can now be issued with a birth certificate which gives him or her the surname of either the father or the mother but the father's name can only appear on the registration entry if an affiliation order has been issued, or he signs the entry, or has acknowledged paternity through a statutory declaration. Until 1977, foundlings (a Foundling being an abandoned child of unknown parentage) were registered by Boards of Guardians and are indexed in the usual way under whatever surname was chosen for the child. Knobstick Weddings ****************** A Knobstick Wedding is the wedding of a pregnant single woman to the putative father-to-be, under pressure from the parish vestry. The churchwardens attended to see that the ceremony was performed, and the name is derived from their staves of office (a wooden walking stick with a knob on the end as a handle). Parish Officers of past days such as Churchwardens, Overseers, Way wardens and Constables had wide powers, and in cases of illegitimacy, where a child or expected child might become chargeable to the parish, considerable pressure was brought to bear, and the reputed father, should there be signs of reluctance on his part, would be conducted to the Church for marriage by one of the Parish Officers or by the Parish Constable. In times when every parish was responsible for the maintenance of its own poor, parish officers would go to great lengths to keep their expenses down. (In cases of female paupers, parish officers would resort even to bribery so as to relieve the parish by marrying off their female paupers, especially paupers with families. They would pay for the marriage licence, for a gold ring, for the Church fees, for a marriage feast and would promise a marriage portion and pay it on completion of the marriage. These expenses would be charged to the parish which, of course, was illegal, but parish accounts in those days were carelessly kept and as carelessly audited.) Recorded in "The Times", 6 Oct 1829: Marriage entry from Wirksworth Parish Register: Married 1829 aug 22 SAXTON William (Sheffield YKS)/BROOKES Lydia Witnesses: Edward CLOUGH, Samuel HANSON "One of those illegal celebrations of matrimony which are termed by the peasantry 'knobstick weddings', lately took place at Wirksworth. The parties forced into the blessed state are William Saxton, a slender-witted man, 24 years of age, and Lydia Brooks, some 15 years older, who has a wooden leg, both of them paupers - the man chargeable to Sheffield, the woman to Middleton, near Matlock". [i.e. the woman had just been removed from Sheffield to Middleton as her legal place of settlement.] The husband explained to the parish overseers that: "Liddie Brooks, whom I never know'd, sweared a child on me as soon as she'd gotten to Middleton, where you sent her. So when she'd swear'd it, they sent o'er for me to filiate it; first of all they took me to Derby, and then, only because I kno'd nothing about it, they remanded me to Wirksworth gaol. When I had lied in gaol some time, the gentlemen I telled you of comes to me, and says they: 'Why, man, you mun marry this lass'." "Ay", says I: "I mun as well, sin you mak me father o' her bairns". Then says they again: "If you don't you know you'll lie in gaol for a twelvemonth, and happen be hanged after all. ...They gied me some liquor, and I being scared, gied 'em my promise". In this state of drunkenness, without hat or shoes, handcuffed, the pauper was taken from goal to Matlock, where a licence of marriage was procured and paid for by the overseers. ... In the morning the overseers appeared before the prison doors, and summoned the captive. To prevent mistakes, it was thought proper that a pair of steel ruffles (handcuffs) should unite the impatient groom to one of the overseers, and in this state, by a circuitous route, the party reached the church of Wirksworth. Here, equally under the influence of the parish guides, stood the wooden-legged bride; and here poor Saxton, who had been frightened into a belief that no choice existed between hanging and marrying, submitted to take for better of worse Lydia Brooks." Apparently the responsible overseers of the poor were afterwards summoned before a magistrate ... "but being unable to give any explanation of their conduct, they were held to bail to appear at the Derby sessions, to answer a prosecution for fraudulently procuring the marriage of William Saxton with Lydia Brooks, with the intent to defraud the township of Sheffield, who had been removed from Sheffield to Middleton." Philip Bateman & David Walker were the parish officers in Middleton who effected to procure a marriage between William Saxon & Lydia Brooks. William said he saw Lydia for the first time on 2nd Aug and was pressured to marry her on the 13 Aug by the 2 defendants. He was promised money and threatened with imprisonment. He was taken by gig to Chesterfield then taken back to Wirksworth to be taken before the magistrate there. Presumably the magistrates in Chesterfield wouldn't come to the party ! He was put in gaol for 3 days then taken to Matlock Bath where David Walker paid for a marriage licence from a Rev Ward there. William then taken to Wirksworth church and married to Lydia. Two days later William left Lydia. David Walker was said to have a public house in Middleton. Both defendants were eventually acquitted. Marriage Allegations, Bonds and Licences **************************************** When two persons wished to marry without having the banns read out in church on 3 consecutive Sundays, they usually applied to the bishop or archdeacon for a licence. This might have been to avoid the 3 week delay or simply to avoid the publicity of banns, they might also have been away from "home" which would have made it difficult to arrange banns in their home parish. The application was called a Marriage Allegation and in it one of the parties, usually the groom, swore that they were able to marry each other i.e. single or widowed, of age, not related within the forbidden degrees of consanguinity, and that they had resided for the required length of time in the parish where they wished to be married. Bonds may also have been submitted, although abolished in 1823, these were sworn statements containing assurances by a couple's friends or relatives (and often the groom) that they knew of no impediment to the marriage and stating the amount of money by which they were bound (and which they might forfeit if the licence was not complied with). There are paper and computer indexes accessible at some Record Offices although copies of actual documents can only be obtained from the offices of issue. Primogeniture ************* The right, or custom, whereby an estate in land or a title of dignity, descends to a person by virtue of his being the eldest male. In the past , when a person died intestate (not having made a will), his personal property, after deduction of the widow's portion, was, under Common Law, divided equally between all of his children but all his landed property went to his eldest son. Prohibited Degrees of Marriage ****************************** The marriage of first cousins was not unusual and has been legal since the 16c. However marriages between people who were related in some other ways (known as the prohibited degrees) were forbidden by acts of Parliament and ecclesiastical law. The present position is set out in the Marriage Act 1949 [as amended in 1986], but for most of the period you will be researching the relevant rules (reached in about 1560 and confirmed by church laws, known as Canons, in 1564) were listed in the Common Book of Prayer of 1662. The prohibitions prevented someone marrying his or her; brother or sister (or their spouse) parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, child or grandchild (or their spouse) niece or nephew (or their spouse)S spouse's child, grandchild, parent, aunt, uncle or grandparent. Statutes of 1907 and 1921 made an exception to the prohibition "brother or sister (or their spouse)" above, allowing people to marry the spouse of their brother or sister, if that brother or sister had died. Some further exceptions were made in 1931, 1949 and 1986 so that, for example, a man was allowed to marry his deceased wife's niece, aunt, or widowed mother. Relationships ************* Degrees of relationship for purposes of inheritance follow a biological path, and advance by one with each person in that path, as follows; one degree : parent and child two degrees : siblings [IE via the parent]; grandparents and grandchild three degrees : uncle or aunt, and nephew, or niece; great-grandparent and great-grandchild four degrees : first cousins; great-great-grandparent and great-great-grandchild Degrees of cousin-ship: First cousins are the children of siblings; second cousins are the children of first cousins; and so on. Cousins are once or more removed when they are not both of the same generation. The removal number indicates by how many generations they differ. For example: my son's child and my daughter's grandchild are first cousins once removed, although logically, one might also say they were second cousins once removed. In practice the relationship is always measured from the closer cousin-ship. Wife selling ************ Until the end of the 19c it was a common misapprehension that a wife was her husband's chattel and so could be sold by him if he so wished. Wife selling in England was a great way of ending an unsatisfactory marriage by a mutual agreement that probably began in the late 17th century, when divorce was a practical impossibility for all but the very wealthiest. After parading his wife with a halter around her neck, arm, or waist, a husband would publicly auction her to the highest bidder. Wife selling provides the backdrop for Thomas Hardy's novel "The Mayor of Casterbridge", in which the central character sells his wife at the beginning of the story, an act that haunts him for the rest of his life, and ultimately destroys him. Although the custom had no basis in law and frequently resulted in prosecution, particularly from the mid-19c onwards, the attitude of the authorities was equivocal. At least one early 19c magistrate is on record as stating that he: "...did not believe he had the right to prevent wife sales, and there were cases of local Poor Law Commissioners forcing husbands to sell their wives, rather than having to maintain the family in workhouses." Wife selling persisted in England in some form until the early 20th century; In 1891 the Chancellor of the day ruled that no law gave a husband complete dominion over the person of his wife. This was blatantly ignored and the practice continued right up until 1913. according to the jurist and historian James Bryce, writing in 1901, wife sales were still occasionally taking place during his time. In one of the last reported instances of a wife sale in England, a woman giving evidence in a Leeds police court in 1913 claimed that she had been "...sold to one of her husband's workmates for £1." Prices paid for wives varied considerably, from a high of £100 plus £25 each for her two children in a sale of 1865. Another form of wife selling was by deed of conveyance. Although initially much less common than sale by auction, the practice became more widespread after the 1850s, as popular opinion turned against the market sale of a wife. The issue of the commonly perceived legitimacy of wife selling was also brought to the government. In 1881, Home Secretary William Harcourt was asked to comment on an incident in Sheffield, in which a man sold his wife for a quart of beer. Harcourt replied: "No impression exists anywhere in England that the selling of wives is legitimate..." "...that no such practice as wife selling exists" but as late as 1889, a member of the Salvation Army sold his wife for a shilling in Hucknall Torkard, Nottinghamshire, and subsequently led her by the halter to her buyer's house, the last case in which the use of a halter is mentioned. Foundling ********* An abandoned child of unknown parents, they became a charge on the poor rate and are recorded in Vestry minutes. They can also be seen referred to as such (foundling) in parish baptism records. From as far back as Hellenistic antiquity and up through the first decades of the twentieth century, the large-scale abandonment of newborn babies features prominently in the history of Western Europe. Although sometimes confounded with infanticide, abandonment frequently occurred with the hope that someone would find and rear the child. In many cases, these abandoned infants, or foundlings, were left with tokens to aid in reclamation or to ensure that they would be well treated. By the 13c, salt was left with foundlings as an indicator of their baptismal status. These tokens suggest some expectation, or at least hope, that the child would be found alive. Until the later Middle Ages, infants were frequently left outside of public buildings or in open places where they might be easily seen. Often they were not, and the child died. As Christianity spread, foundlings were increasingly deposited in the relative safety of churches. Beginning in the 12c, the process of abandonment became more institutionalised. Aimed at preventing loss of life–especially when it occurred prior to Baptism, a system of foundling homes emerged in Italy and then spread throughout much of Europe. By the nineteenth century, over one hundred thousand foundlings were being abandoned annually to these institutions. These officially sanctioned systems usually allowed for the abandonment to remain anonymous. In many parts of Europe, including Britain, it was possible to abandon the infant via a device known as the wheel, a crude wooden turntable placed within the wall of the foundling home building, often containing a cradle of sorts. A person standing outside the foundling home could place an infant inside the wheel, and, in many instances, there would be a bell above the wheel to ring and alert someone inside, who could then turn the wheel and procure the foundling without seeing the person who left the child. Ideally, these institutions would place the foundling with paid foster parents, preferably in the countryside, who would then raise the child. Foundling homes differed in the age at which they stopped paying foster parents, but in most cases, female foundlings remained the wards of the home until marriage, while male foundlings were cut off from all support once payments to their foster families ceased. London's Foundlings ******************* Up to a thousand babies a year were abandoned in early 18th-century London. They were often left by the side of the road in the desperate hope that someone would care for them but most ended up on rubbish heaps. In 1739, Thomas Coram established a "Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted Children" which looked after more than 27,000 children over 3 centuries at 3 sites until its closure in 1953. The Foundling Museum tells the story of the foundlings, how they lived, and displays the many poignant objects relating to their lives at the Hospital. Mothers left tokens, such as a button or even a nut, to identify their children in the hope they could return for them in the future. Thomas Coram (1668 – 1751) campaigned for 17 years to start the Foundling Hospital. He was a pioneer in child welfare and was dedicated to finding a way to care for London's foundlings. When he opened the Foundling Hospital in 1739, he found most of the children came from domestic servants in central London who could not support a child. The Hospital was overwhelmed by the response from mothers and started a ballot system to decide which children they could take. Mother's picked a ball from a bag to decide the fate of their child while wealthy women would look on as if this were a spectator activity. Thomas Coram's legacy lives on with Coram's Fields - a children's playground just around the corner from the Foundling Museum where adults are only permitted when accompanying a child. Sources: www.lewcock.net/ www.ancestryaid.co.uk/ www.victorianweb.org/ www.gov.uk/adoption-records www.methodist.org.uk/ www.religionfacts.com www.hearthtax.org.uk/ golondon.about.com/od/londonmuseums/a/foundlinghist.htm www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ukwales2/hicks3.html www.british-history.ac.uk/ familysearch.org/learn/ www.encyclopedia.com/ www.longparish.org.uk www.projectbook.co.uk/ http://en.wikipedia.org/ "The Times", 6 Oct 1829