Southfield Maternity Home, Bowden

[dawnsh]

If I get chance tomorrow, I'll ring Trafford council and ask.

[dawnsh]

Hi suds

I couldn't phone yesterday but have just done so today.

The ladies in the office 'think' that there's a clerical error with the register and the babies are buried in plot F 5 A, which is a common/public grave.

Plot F5 is definitley a purchased plot, hence the headstone.

Unfortunately, the offices are moving and the registers have already gone across.

They said that if your brother could go again, Dominic the groundsman, would be able to show him F 5 A, he's there today but not tomorrow and I don't know what the opening times will be over Christmas.

[LizzieW]

the babies are buried in plot F 5 A, which is a common/public grave.

Do they have records of the babies who are buried?  I imagine many years ago when stillbirths and babies who died soon after birth were just taken from their mothers that they would have been buried by the groundsman without a service for the babies.  Nowadays, thankfully, most stillborns and others who died soon after birth are given proper burials/cremations by their families.

[suds]

Dawn

Thanks for your efforts on our behalf. I've copied your message and emailed it to my brother. I'm not sure what his arrangements are for the next few days but I'm sure he'll go back at some time.

It's frustrating that I now live in Somerset and can't just pop along when I like. When i met my first wife she lived just off Delahayes Road and I lived there for a year before we moved away. So I know the area quite well but I can't, for the life of me, remember the cemetery. Touch of the alzheimers, I think.

A question I have.

I presume Hale Cemetery is a municipal cemetery, that is, not associated with a particular church. I also presume, open to all religions. Is it consecrated ground? And if so, consecrated by who? Does each religion have a go including say Muslims and Hindus or is it completely secular. I've no idea.

Regards

Suds

[dawnsh]

Hale, unlike some other cemeteries, apparently does not have separate areas for consecrated and unconsecrated ground for those of a non-Anglican persuasion.

The ground would have been blessed or not at the time of burial.

Despite there being a blip on the entry Suds is after, their record keeping is very good and there are lots of stillborn or neonatal entries.

Apart from the register online, the cemetery office does have other registers which refer to the purchase of plots.

However the problem comes with using DeceasedOnline as you have to have a surname to search on, you can't search on first names only, dates or other plot numbers which is proving to be a challenge.

[dawnsh]

Suds

If your brother rings before he goes, the office at Trafford Council Bereavement services can tell him whether Dominic will be there or not.

https://www.trafford.gov.uk/residents/contacts/secure/bereavement-services.aspx

[stitchwitch]

the babies are buried in plot F 5 A, which is a common/public grave.

Do they have records of the babies who are buried?  I imagine many years ago when stillbirths and babies who died soon after birth were just taken from their mothers that they would have been buried by the groundsman without a service for the babies.  Nowadays, thankfully, most stillborns and others who died soon after birth are given proper burials/cremations by their families.

Sorry to say, Lizzie, but you make some wild assumptions. The babies under discussion had their own burials, properly recorded in the burials register. They were not anonymously slipped inside someone else's coffin. This can clearly be seen from the burials register where the dates do not correspond with other interments. My own brother's entry is marked "no ceremony" but this is not the same as simply being planted willy-nilly by a passing gardener. Examination of the Burials Register also clearly shows that infant burials took place in the public graves, with no particular plot reserved. There is no separate list of infant burials. 

Stitch

[LizzieW]

Stitch - that may well have been the case at Southfields, but having been a midwife from the 1970s, I can tell you that stillborn babies were just taken from their mothers and sent to the mortuary, from where they would be collected by an undertaker and buried in an adult's coffin.

You even say yourself "My own brother's entry is marked "no ceremony"" and "Examination of the Burials Register also clearly shows that infant burials took place in the public graves, with no particular plot reserved. There is no separate list of infant burials".  And I didn't say the stillborns were buried willy-nilly by any passing gardener.

[stitchwitch]

Stitch - that may well have been the case at Southfields, but having been a midwife from the 1970s, I can tell you that stillborn babies were just taken from their mothers and sent to the mortuary, from where they would be collected by an undertaker and buried in an adult's coffin.

You even say yourself "My own brother's entry is marked "no ceremony"" and "Examination of the Burials Register also clearly shows that infant burials took place in the public graves, with no particular plot reserved. There is no separate list of infant burials". 

Yes. Each person in a public grave has their own entry, showing date of interment. If a child were buried in the same coffin as an adult they would, of necessity, show the same date. The infant burials I have looked at, including my brother, are on separate dates and therefore cannot have taken place at the same time as anyone else buried in there. No church ceremony was performed for a child who had not drawn breath since they were not classed as having been alive. The grave would still have been prepared to the required depth etc., and was in consecrated ground.

When you worked as a midwife, how did you know how the babies were disposed of once collected from the mortuary? Did you perhaps witness the procedure which you describe? I have always assumed that by that time there were strict laws regarding the disposal of bodies. Could you perhaps be confusing this with the disposal of unviable infants (below 24 weeks gestation?) which would be classed as miscarriages as opposed to stillbirths?

Stitch