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Authors: Jennifer Worth
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seven babies born to her daughter, who was unmarried and of very limited intelligence. Forensic investigation uncovered the remains buried around the croft. What could go on undetected in the remote highlands of Scotland could well go on in the overcrowded slums of any great city, especially in centuries past. It must have happened times beyond number, and nobody knew.
Did fathers kill babies? Who knows? One of our elderly Sisters certainly thought so. I am not of the school that thinks men are the root of all evil, but it is certainly a possibility that some fathers may have been driven to it. Accident is more likely than murder, in my opinion. A newborn baby is very delicate. In overcrowded conditions someone or something falling on the baby could cause death; suffocation in the family bed could occur – there are many possibilities. It must also be remembered that domestic violence was an accepted part of life in some families. Women and children expected to be beaten up, and in such a scene a misdirected blow could easily kill a baby. If such a thing happened the mother would have done everything possible to conceal the death, and if the baby was unregistered she would probably get away with it. If her husband, the wage earner, was convicted of murder, it would be the gallows for him, or transportation if the judge was lenient. Either way, the family would be deprived of financial support.
Not all missing babies died, however. The more prosperous the family, the more reason for concealing an unwanted birth. A wealthy girl’s mother could keep her confined to the house, conduct the delivery herself, perhaps with the aid of a handy-woman, dispose of the baby, and no one would know. But how? A respectable matron could not go hawking a newborn baby around the workhouses and orphanages because, firstly, the baby would be refused admission, and, secondly, the neighbours would quickly find out. So an arrangement for private fostering, or ‘boarding’ as it was called, had to be found. Many handy-women had an ‘understanding’ with women who boarded babies, acting as intermediary, and taking a fee from both parties.
I knew a woman whose daughter, then aged twenty-four, had an illegitimate baby in 1949, which is not so very long ago. The woman said to me, smugly, ‘I took it away at birth, of course. My daughter was not allowed to see it. The baby went to an orphanage.’ It must have been a private commercial establishment, because the baby was not an orphan. Both parents were known and living.
A decade later, I delivered the baby of a young girl in Poplar. Throughout the delivery her mother shouted repeatedly that she would ‘get rid of the baby and put it in a home or institution’. At one stage she ordered me – the midwife – to ‘clear off’. She could deliver the baby herself and then get rid of it. I don’t know what she had in mind, but obviously she knew of some lawful way of disposing of an unwanted baby. 8
The standard of care in these private ‘homes’ for babies would depend entirely on the person in charge. One of my friends was an illegitimate child seventy-five years ago. She was sent from one private boarding or foster parent to another, and eventually went to live with a single lady who loved and cared for her and became a lifelong guardian and friend. By way of contrast a woman in Clapham was prosecuted in the 1920s for having eight babies (each of which she was paid to care for) in five cots in the basement of her house. The babies ranged from newborn to three years old. The toddlers could not walk. They had never been out of their cots. They could not talk; they had not heard enough language.
Traffic in children has been going on for as long as mankind has been sinning and suffering. Josephine Butler (1828-1907) writes in her journals, pamphlets and diaries of the second half of the nineteenth century about seeing thousands (yes, thousands ) of little girls, some as young as four or five,
Did fathers kill babies? Who knows? One of our elderly Sisters certainly thought so. I am not of the school that thinks men are the root of all evil, but it is certainly a possibility that some fathers may have been driven to it. Accident is more likely than murder, in my opinion. A newborn baby is very delicate. In overcrowded conditions someone or something falling on the baby could cause death; suffocation in the family bed could occur – there are many possibilities. It must also be remembered that domestic violence was an accepted part of life in some families. Women and children expected to be beaten up, and in such a scene a misdirected blow could easily kill a baby. If such a thing happened the mother would have done everything possible to conceal the death, and if the baby was unregistered she would probably get away with it. If her husband, the wage earner, was convicted of murder, it would be the gallows for him, or transportation if the judge was lenient. Either way, the family would be deprived of financial support.
Not all missing babies died, however. The more prosperous the family, the more reason for concealing an unwanted birth. A wealthy girl’s mother could keep her confined to the house, conduct the delivery herself, perhaps with the aid of a handy-woman, dispose of the baby, and no one would know. But how? A respectable matron could not go hawking a newborn baby around the workhouses and orphanages because, firstly, the baby would be refused admission, and, secondly, the neighbours would quickly find out. So an arrangement for private fostering, or ‘boarding’ as it was called, had to be found. Many handy-women had an ‘understanding’ with women who boarded babies, acting as intermediary, and taking a fee from both parties.
I knew a woman whose daughter, then aged twenty-four, had an illegitimate baby in 1949, which is not so very long ago. The woman said to me, smugly, ‘I took it away at birth, of course. My daughter was not allowed to see it. The baby went to an orphanage.’ It must have been a private commercial establishment, because the baby was not an orphan. Both parents were known and living.
A decade later, I delivered the baby of a young girl in Poplar. Throughout the delivery her mother shouted repeatedly that she would ‘get rid of the baby and put it in a home or institution’. At one stage she ordered me – the midwife – to ‘clear off’. She could deliver the baby herself and then get rid of it. I don’t know what she had in mind, but obviously she knew of some lawful way of disposing of an unwanted baby. 8
The standard of care in these private ‘homes’ for babies would depend entirely on the person in charge. One of my friends was an illegitimate child seventy-five years ago. She was sent from one private boarding or foster parent to another, and eventually went to live with a single lady who loved and cared for her and became a lifelong guardian and friend. By way of contrast a woman in Clapham was prosecuted in the 1920s for having eight babies (each of which she was paid to care for) in five cots in the basement of her house. The babies ranged from newborn to three years old. The toddlers could not walk. They had never been out of their cots. They could not talk; they had not heard enough language.
Traffic in children has been going on for as long as mankind has been sinning and suffering. Josephine Butler (1828-1907) writes in her journals, pamphlets and diaries of the second half of the nineteenth century about seeing thousands (yes, thousands ) of little girls, some as young as four or five,
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