Baptism Query

[gpearey]

I'm hoping someone can give me some advice regarding an illegitimate child my grandmother had in 1929.

I have a copy of the birth certificate which, unsuprisingly, does not have a father mentioned.  I have checked the parish register for a baptism but have not found any record.

My grandmother lived on a farm in a small village in North Yorkshire.  Could it be likely that, because of people's views at the time, she wouldn't have the child baptised in her local parish.  Could she have decided to go to a nearby parish instead or would this not be possible?

There's no non-conformist history in this side of the family and both she and her brother had been baptised.

Many thanks
Graham

[lizdb]

Hard to know what her thoughts were. She may just decided not to have the baby christened at all.

[stanmapstone]

Could she have decided to go to a nearby parish instead or would this not be possible?

Canon (Church) Law states that; "A  minister who intends to baptize any infant whose parents are residing outside the boundaries of his cure, unless the names of such persons or one of them be on the church electoral roll of the same, shall not proceed to the baptism without having sought the good will of the minister of the parish in which such parents reside."

Stan

[Billyblue]

Well, that means that Canon Law allows it, if the respective parish ministers agree.
If they were compassionate men they probably had such an arrangement.

Then again, maybe the child just didn't get baptised, as lizdb suggests.

Dawn M

[Ayashi]

What about later on? Sometimes they didn't christen children right away (one of mine was 9 years old when he was finally christened!) although this was unusual... often in cases like these the children were mass-christened at the same time rather than individually after birth. If your grandmother later moved, or got married and moved away, or married a man from a different church etc... perhaps the child was eventually christened elsewhere?

[ThrelfallYorky]

Most ministers in various churches seem to have been quite happy to baptise the children of single women - when looking someone up for a friend last year I found the person had five children baptised, and in the notes on each was "single woman", in one case underlined. I would expect that they decided the soul of the child was more important than the morality of the mother! Didn't unbaptised souls have to hang around in Limbo for eternity, rather than going "upstairs" or "downstairs" after death?

[stanmapstone]

It would be a contravention of Ecclesiastical Law if baptism was refused.
The Church of England Canon 68:
"No minister shall refuse or delay to christen any child, according to the form of the Book of Common Prayer, that is brought to him upon Sundays or holy days to be christened (convenient warning being given him thereof before) in such manner and form as is prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer; and if he shall refuse to christen he shall be suspended by the bishop of the diocese from his ministry by the space of three months”

Stan

[BumbleB]

By 1929 I don't think (although I'm not positive) that people considered baptism to be an essential part of life, as lizdb has already said.

A lot later than 1929, I know  - I did not marry in church, my child was not christened and her children are not christened.

[gpearey]

Thanks to all that responded. I know that she lived in the same parish for at least the next 20 years and the parish registers available go way past then without any evidence of a baptism. I've found my aunt's baptism details from 1946 in the same parish once my grandmother had married.

I'm hoping (possibly in vain) that I might be able to find the father of the illegitimate child. He never married and my mum's cousins say they never knew who the father was although it wasn't uncommon not to talk about family history then. He had quite a unique first and middle name which doesn't appear anywhere else in my family although he seems to have been accepted by my grandfather and was eventually buried with his grand-parents in the same parish.

I'll try and search neighbouring parishes next time I'm at the record office but thanks again everyone.