These days having a baby when you are not married happens so often that nobody thinks twice about it. But at one time, having an illegitimate child was considered extremely shameful.
Poor Law
The New Poor Law enacted in the 19th century was an attempt to restore female morality while absolving the child’s father of any responsibility. His obligations had been recognised two hundred years earlier, though. The 1733 Poor Law made the father responsible for the illegitimate child’s maintenance.
Protection
It eventually began to dawn on those in authority that babies needed protection from the unscrupulous ‘baby farmers’ that were around at the time. Initially, it was considered that protection should be afforded only to children under one-year-old. However, it was then agreed that it should be extended to include children up to five years old. Also, they could not be passed on to others once a deal had been made with their parents for the sale of the child to the baby farmer, who would find adoptive parents for it – or sometimes simply murder it for profit.
Infant Life Protection Act
The Infant Life Protection Act of 1897 gave local authorities control of the registration of nurses who cared for more than one infant under five for longer than 48 hours. Eleven years later, the Children’s Act controlled both the conditions of the place children were kept and who could look after them.
State Control
1939 saw the enactment of the Adoption of Children (Regulation) Act which, together with several earlier Acts, put an end to baby farming altogether by placing adoption and foster care under state control. In the interim, however, a huge number of children put in the care of ‘nurses’ were murdered by them.
Athelstan Braxton Hicks
The risk children might be exposed to at baby farms and by so-called nurses was highlighted by a coroner for London and Surrey, whose father described the contractions that come and go during pregnancy. He was Athelstan Braxton Hicks, whose nickname back then was “The Children’s Coroner”. He expressed the opinion that “a large amount of crime is covered by the expression ‘still-birth'” and took an active part in trying to protect babies and children from those who might harm them.
