Well, I have now received the Sheriff Court Entry in the matter of the Paternity Suit brought by Agnes Paterson against Alexander Boyes. He admits being the father and gets dinged fairly heavily, considering this is 1851:
£1. 11. 6d "...for the inlying expense of and attending the birth of an illegitimate female child..."
£4.0.0d per annum "...payable half-yearly in advance..." until the child attained 10 years of age
£3.10.11 1/2d (very precise!) "...of expenses OFPROCEP..."
5/- (5 shillings) "...as the expense of extracting this DECRUT and of recording of same...".
Anyone know what these 2 words mean? As I am not supposed to copy this original in any way publicly, I have had to type them out, but - having magnified the (easily legible) writing - I believe they are faithfully reproduced.
I've checked, allowing for 13,450% or thereabouts inflation and using their calculator, the amounts are:
£210.00 for the birth
£542.00 p.a. for maintenance
£474.00 for expenses
£33.88 for extract and recording.
So maintenance is cheap, as is the birth, but expenses and 'admin fees' are expensive.
It's been an interesting experiment - all for £5.00 - but still gets me nowhere in regard to Thomas aka William and where the 'Gibson', 'Conville (with all of its variations)' or 'Hiddlestone' come from.
