Illegitimacy

[alliekiwi]

Did the rates of illegitimate children go up during WW1 as I think they did in WW2?

I've been wondering about this for awhile, now. I have a 'great uncle' who was actually my father's cousin, and not his uncle after all: Aunty Molly had a fling with a sailor, and her son was brought up as her much younger brother. Pretty easy to do in those days of large families. His birth certificate, however, told another tale. I saw it a number of years ago, and it had ILLEGITIMATE stamped across it in large unfriendly red letters.

So do we know if there was an increase? I know the military were concerned about rates of VD, but what about more... lasting effects (if you can call babies that)? I'm guessing the military might not have been concerned, but perhaps the government/s were?

Allie

[clive_hughes]

Did the rates of illegitimate children go up during WW1 as I think they did in WW2?

I've been wondering about this for awhile, now. I have a 'great uncle' who was actually my father's cousin, and not his uncle after all: Aunty Molly had a fling with a sailor, and her son was brought up as her much younger brother. Pretty easy to do in those days of large families. His birth certificate, however, told another tale. I saw it a number of years ago, and it had ILLEGITIMATE stamped across it in large unfriendly red letters.

So do we know if there was an increase? I know the military were concerned about rates of VD, but what about more... lasting effects (if you can call babies that)? I'm guessing the military might not have been concerned, but perhaps the government/s were?

Allie

Allie,

I'm surprised at the highlighting on your relative's Birth Cert. - was it perhaps just a local bureaucratic rule? In the UK even well before the 1WW they didn't trumpet the child's status quite like that. They just left out the father's details, unless the mother decided she wanted to declare his identity officially. Same applied to baptism registers in the Anglican church; though the really old regrs of an earlier age made no bones about describing the status of both mum and child in often insulting terms.

Certainly the "blank" entry would be a bit of a giveaway (I know of one such cert in my own family from the early 1920s) though one could possibly argue that it might mean the father had pre-deceased his child's birth...it is still the case, I think, that (on a Marriage Certificate) a deceased father can either be named normally, named with the word "deceased" added; or just left blank - all are valid. I also know that for various reasons living fathers' details can be deliberately omitted from baptismal entries and wedding certs.

All of which discursion leads me to suggest that the answer to your 1WW statistical question might just be found in Beckett & Simpson's "A Nation in Arms" (1985 or later printings). I'd look it up at once myself except I've had the electrician in 2 days ago, and in clearing a path to his under-floor objective upstairs, he's stacked a mountain of boxes etc right in the doorway to my book store...if you can hang on and no other pal gets there first, I'll have a dekko once I've tackled the removals!

Regards,

LST_164

[John_Hartley]

Did the rates of illegitimate children go up during WW1

I don't know. My mother, born in 1916, was illegitimate but she would have been conceived in the late spring of 1915.

Her mother brought her up for several years but, in the mid-1920s, she was unofficially adopted by her uncle & aunt.

John

[alliekiwi]

LST_164 I'd not heard of that book. Must see if there is a copy available on interloan down my way somewhere.

The birth certificate in question was a New Zealand one from 1919. I remember reading that birth certificates for adopted children also had ADOPTED on them in the same style, but I'm not sure when they stopped doing that. My sister was adopted in the late 1960s, and there is nothing on her birth certificate to suggest that my parents are not her birth parents. US birth certificates also had 'adopted' across them in about the 1940s or so, I think, from memory - I read a story about a woman who was adopted, and only found out when her mother had to show her birth certificate when she was enrolled at school, and she saw the stamp across it.

My stepfather-in-law was adopted in the 1930s in England, and there is nothing on his current-name birth certificate to show he is adopted, although he has seen a copy of his original pre-adoption birth certificate amongst the records that used to be at Somerset House.

Sounds like New Zealand was rather backward in perpetuating the stigma.

Thanks, John. Do you happen to know what was on your mother's original birth certificate?

Allie

[zooloo]

My sister was adopted in the late 1960s, and there is nothing on her birth certificate to suggest that my parents are not her birth parents.

My stepfather-in-law was adopted in the 1930s in England, and there is nothing on his current-name birth certificate to show he is adopted, although he has seen a copy of his original pre-adoption birth certificate amongst the records that used to be at Somerset House.

IRC a while ago there was a play on Radio 4. The gist was that a baby was adopted, the new parents then moved to another district and registered her birth again. This time in their own name.

The characters said something to the effect of that's what many people did then. Perhaps there was a base in truth for the play, perhaps not.

[Pete1052]

Is is possible that census surveys might have captured that data? Although "Illegitimate Births" may not have been a standard category in these surveys, it might be possible to extrapolate those figures from the data the various nations collected.

[frev]

Hi Allie

My mother-in-law was born in England in 1918, her birth certificate has the father's details left blank. Her mother was in the Green Cross & my m-i-l has some faint memory of something she heard as a child, that gave her the impression, that her father may have been a Canadian Soldier on leave.

She was cared for for a few years by a nanny (foster mother), but put into 'service' when her mother married. Her mother kept in contact with her, but she died young & my m-i-l had never had the courage in time, to ask the full details of her birth.

The stigma of being illegitimate (& not apparently wanted), has affected her her whole life. One of the many sad victims of war.

Cheers, Frev

[John_Hartley]

Thanks, John. Do you happen to know what was on your mother's original birth certificate?

Father's name is blank.

I didnt know of this till fairly recently. I knew she'd been adopted and it must have been within the family (as surnames were the same). The man who I knew as grandad (and who was really her uncle) was the subject of my original research (he's the Tom Brough in my signature). It was only when I came to research his brother, Robert, that I found this out. My guess was that Robert was the father and there had been some "trouble" after he was killed and his widow remarried.

At that point I applied for Mum's birth certificate and "all was revealed". I've no idea who her father might have been. He might have been intending to marry her mother but went off to war and was killed. He might have just been a ****.

John

[clive_hughes]

Hi Allie,

I have fought my way into the box room at last, and retrieved a copy of Ian F W Beckett and Keith Simpson (ed.) A Nation in Arms. A Social Study of the British Army in the First World War,[/b] originally publ. by Manchester University Press 1984, then by Tom Donovan Publishing Ltd in a slightly cheaper format in 1990, and again just lately (2004) by Pen & Sword Select, Barnsley. According to BookFinder.com the 1st edn seems to sell from £21 and upwards; the 3rd impression can be obtained for £19.99 direct from the publishers (all prices excl. postage).

Illegitimacy is mentioned briefly in Peter Simkins' contribution on p176, where he states that the UK illegitimacy rate was, despite media fears, "exceptionally low" in 1915 but increased again in 1916. Sources for these statements seem to be the Annual Report of the Registrar-General for 1915 and 1916. He doesn't give the exact percentages, or deal with any other years for comparison.

Adoption: before the advent of the UK National Health Service in 1948, I think adoption was often arranged through a number of Church-based agencies, whose files can still be consulted (by those individuals concerned). I have recently seen a WW2 period official Adoption Certificate issued by the Registrar General's office, which does give the previous name of the child and which has all the legal weight of an original birth certificate. Post-1948 the files are held by local authorities, and access can be granted to the individual concerned (though after a form of counselling beforehand). Pre-1948 that didn't prevent private arrangements being made outside the above agencies.

Aside from the GRO's birth records, in England and Wales from 1915 onwards there existed a parallel set of (?annual) registers of births in the various district or county council areas. They were based on hospitals or midwives' declarations of whom they'd attended, & where & when. Unlike the Birth Cert., I recall that the earlier regrs could actually provide the name of the midwife, the time of birth, and even maybe the weight of baby!!! As an archivist, I would often look at those in my custody but after a while (ca. 1990) a directive was issued slapping a 100-year public access rule on them.

I'll illustrate the problems with a true example: a man in his 60s discovered after the death of his parents that he had been "acquired" in the 1920s. His enquiries only produced a long tangled trail of lies and cover-ups, which left him without any birth certificate because his mother had either given fake details to the midwife/registrar wherever she was confined, or had arranged that her confinement wasn't recorded officially. No agency had been used for adoption, so no records there either. He was just left with a vague story about a liaison with a local "notable", who had effectively paid his "adoptive" parents to take the child & bring him up secretly as their own. Even his birthday was a fake invented by the conspirators. I felt very sorry for him, as his identity and whole family life had been suddenly exposed as a sham.

Anyway, hope this might help.

Cheers,

LST_164