User:Parrot of Doom/Baby farming

Poor laws

 * 17th - 18th century poor laws, illegitimate children denied help
 * 1733 Poor Law made putative fathers responsible for illegitimate children, state paid for children if he couldn't, state tried to force marriage to reduce costs
 * 1834 Poor Laws reformed, presumption was that state relief encouraged illegitimacy. Fathers therefore excused from paying for illegitimate children via Bastardy Clause.  Mothers solely responsible for themselves and illegitimate children until age 16.  Those unable to do so > workhouse.
 * Government fearful of interfering in family life
 * New laws designed to dissuade women from immorality, by making them liable. Would also relieve parish funds.
 * Social stigma, no employment possible
 * options were the workhouse, murder, or baby farmers


 * Pinchbeck Hewitt

Campaign
On 17 May 1866 the Harveian Society of London decided to investigate the social problems that lay behind child murder. Its committee gathered information from a range of professionals and in January the following year, at the society's annual meeting, presented a list of 20 recommendations. These included the compulsory registration of all births, the supervision of day-nurses caring for illegitimate children, and the collection of greater sums of money from putative fathers. But when these ideas were presented later that month to the Home Secretary, Spencer Horatio Walpole, the society was informed that a government concerning itself with domestic matters like suffrage would be unlikely to legislate. Furthermore, some of the society's figures on illegitimacy were called into question.

Undeterred, John Brendon Curgenven, who had set the Harveian Society's investigation into motion, continued to campaign for better infant care. His proposals were backed by the Health Department of the Social Science Association. The Pall Mall Gazette began to denounce "suspicious" newspaper advertisements for child adoption, while in December 1867, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) printed a list of recommendations which included the mandatory registration of all births, the registration of nurses of illegitimate children, and the supervision of said nurses by the district Poor-law medical officer. It also suggested that penalties be imposed for neglect, that nurses take care of no more than two children, and that no children be "be entered as members of burial clubs, or to become the subjects of life assurance".

In January 1868, Ernest Abraham Hart, editor of the BMJ, began an investigation into baby farming and abortion. The journal expressed its concerns about baby farming and its desire to see "state interference" by "legal methods and judicial inquiry."

"...the system of baby-farming and baby-murder—terms frequently convertible—which, no one will be surprised to hear, is now carried on in the metropolis and in the provinces, after a fashion destructive to life, utterly immoral, and not uncommonly felonious ... only by the aid of a strong professional and public opinion and the enlightened criticism and assistance of the public press, can we hope to see early and effective measures taken to repress and regulate a traffic which, at the best, is full of dangerous evils, and, as now carried on in London, affords, as we shall show, an easy cover for crime and a sure refuge from the penalties of unrestrained profligacy."

The editorial also outlined the BMJ's plans to "dissect the matter in our hands" and produce further evidence to justify its wish to see baby farming regulated. Over the following weeks the journal published details of its investigations into houses where "baby can be left", and homes where illegal abortions took place. "We almost dread indignation and sensation taking up such a congenial subject, and making it to stink in the nostrils of plain common sense" begged an editorial printed late in February 1868, followed the next month by details of a visit to a baby farmer in London, where the condition of several malnourished and neglected children was recorded. The BMJ also reported on correspondence received about baby farming. In August 1868 it told of a 65-year-old pensioner who was paid about 2s 6d a week for each illegitimate child she took in. She fed them four or five times daily with "bread-and-water sop, with a little sugar and butter; sago sometimes, boiled with the bread; no milk". Out of eight children, four had died. It also printed details of court cases involving baby farmers, such as the committal of a baby farmer in 1868 for manslaughter (the infant had been starved to death), and an 1871 case at Lambeth Police Court where a woman took charge of an infant for eight shillings. The BMJ noted how the child had "nothing to rely on but the kindness of its involuntary foster-mother".

On Hart's behalf, Lord Shaftesbury raised the BMJ's investigation in the House of Lords, where he asked the President of the Privy Council, the Duke of Marlborough, if the government intended to act. Marlborough said that the "Government would turn their attention to the question during the recess; and he hoped they would be able to discover means which, embodied in a Bill, would obviate the dangerous abuses to which attention had been directed."

Select Committee on the Protection of Infant Life
Despite these efforts, nothing happened until June 1870, when the bodies of two children murdered by Margaret Waters were found in Brixton. The BMJ used the case to remind readers that despite the journal's reports, the government had done nothing to remedy the problem. Renewed interest led to the formation of a "Society for the Protection of Infant Life", which a weeks later, delivered a draft bill to the Home Secretary Henry Bruce, 1st Baron Aberdare. Its requirements included the licensing of all baby farmers, registration of all births, and the registration of "all places where nurse-children were tended".

The Infant Life Protection Bill, introduced to Parliament on 21 February 1871 by Conservative politician William Thomas Charley, did not gain traction. It was opposed by libertarians, but also by the nascent women's suffrage movement. The Committee for Amending the Law in Points Wherein It Is Injurious to Women wrote that the bill was hostile to women (in that it ignored discrimination against them), threatened their employment opportunities, and might have prevented single mothers leaving their children with friends for short periods. The government opposed the recommendations of the Association for the Protection of Infants, but agreed to form a Select Committee to consider the matter. It first convened late in May 1871, taking evidence from a range of witnesses, including Ernest Hart, whose investigations had first been published by the BMJ in 1868. While the BMJ continued to report on cases of baby farming, such as one found in August 1871 in Manchester, the 17 members of the select committee concluded that baby-farming appeared to be most prevalent in and around the greater London area, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Greenock. It judged that most of the infants were sourced from secret lying-in houses, for a generally insufficient fee, and given into the care of baby farmers—on the strict understanding that the mother would never see her child again. Referring to the recent Margaret Waters case, the police told the committee of their investigations into Mary Hall, who supplied Waters with infants. Many pregnant women had apparently been seen entering Hall's seven-room south London home, but few left with a baby. Neighbours were unaware of any crying children, possibly because Hall obtained laudanum syrup from a nearby chemist. But they did report seeing her husband, who washed the soiled linen, throwing "lumps" from the sheets, to his cats. A police search later revealed holes in the garden "full of cinders, ashes, lime, and a quantity of earth, wet and slimey, containing maggots in abundance". When arrested, Hall had £800 in her possession. Cases in Lancashire and Yorkshire seemed to be rare, perhaps because a more reliable means of disposal may have been available.

The committee concluded that the farming of children should be subject to regulation and issued four recommendations: compulsory registration of all births and deaths; compulsory registration of all private houses used as lying-in establishments; registration of anyone nursed two or more children under one year of age for more than a day (but not to interfere with temporary arrangements); and that nurses not compelled to register should be encouraged to do so voluntarily.

Infant Life Protection Acts
Based on the select committee's recommendations, the Infant Life Protection Society presented the Home Secretary with a revised bill, which was introduced to Parliament on 7 February 1872. Though it was eventually approved, Charley was forced to respond to criticism that it did not go far enough by explaining that concessions had been granted to more easily secure a consensus. Some writers view the Act as a failure, although the society helped secure other changes to Britain's legal system, such a bill to amend the bastardy laws. Also introduced by Charley, it proposed to give courts greater power over child support from fathers, extend to 16 the age at which they would no longer be liable for such costs, and give mothers assistance from the Poor Law board of guardians in recovering maintenance costs. It became law in June 1872 with the Bastardy Laws Amendment Act. With the BMA and the Obstetrical Society of London, the Infant Life Protection Society also helped create the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1874.

Though the Infant Life Protection Act became law on 1 November 1872, it was widely ignored. The Metropolitan Board of Works, responsible for enforcing the Act in London, published details of the new law in newspapers, police stations and workhouses. But during the last few months of 1872 the board registered only five houses and authorized the care of a mere ten children. The figures were little better in 1873, with only ten homes registered and 23 children authorized. Subsequent investigations demonstrated that far from the BMJ's initial conclusion—that these numbers represented a huge fall in baby farming—most people in London were ignoring the law. The Act stipulated that carers who looked after more than one child for more than a day register with their local authority. It also required carers to report deaths, in their home, to the coroner. But it made no provision for the inspection of private houses and exempted those who looked after only one child. An investigation in 1878 by Samuel Babey, inspector of nurse-children, found that none of the 284 children discovered in unregistered properties could be removed, as only one child under the age of one year was in residence. The MBW proposed reinterpreting "infant" to mean any child under seven years old, but this suggestion was rejected by the government. Few local authorities bothered to enforce the new law.

Though the BMA continued to report on inquests into baby-farming, while the Waifs and Strays Society criticised the continued use of dubious newspaper advertisements for adoption services, it took a series of notorious legal cases to force the Home Office to act. In 1890 the government presented a new Bill, designed to extend child protection to foster homes that took only one child. Facing criticism that such a measure might create problems with informal childcare arrangements, such as those made between neighbours, a Select Committee recommended that the law include only illegitimate children. However, due to disagreements over its wording, the final draft of the Bill was dropped. Following further attempts to create new legislation, and the coincidental trial for murder of Amelia Dyer, parliament passed the Infant Life Protection Act 1897.

The Act extended the law's protection to include children aged up to five years. Carers were required to notify the authorities of their activities, while inspectors were given the right to apply for a warrant to enter premises they were refused access to. If asked, workhouses were obliged to house children taken from baby-farmers. Somewhat controversially, adoptions where more than £20 changed hands required no notification (the intention being to avoid potentially dangerous "low-class" transactions). Also controversial was the continued exemption of households with only one child, although supporters like the Waifs and Strays Society were concerned about the effect official inspections might have had on potential foster parents. The so-called "£20 rule" and the exemption of single-child households were eventually abolished by the Children Act 1908. This also raised the protected age to seven years, and required Poor Law Unions to appoint inspectors.

Fostering and adoption

 * Thompson Dickson


 * "systemic baby-farming at Birkenhead", JSTOR 25251922 20 Sept 1879


 * history of adoption


 * unreliable list of baby killers