Were children taken in to care in 1880’s?

[Tempest2]

When I say “care” I mean the equivalent then. This in a way ties in with my question on the Balloon Court thread.
By the 1881 census my ancestors have had 3 children. In Balloon Court, Nottingham (demolished now firstly for Victoria railway station and nowadays Vitoria shopping center) they were living above the Mission Room of St. Stephens Church. I was already frustrated that my direct ancestor Alfred Henry Campion only 3 years old was missing from the census, in fact missing from the next two until he appears on his marriage certificate. The other two children are there but they too go missing from later census. Last night I found a Newspaper article that says parents Samuel and Elizabeth Campion were in court in 1883 for suffocating their 4th child, 3 weeks old, on what I think is her birth and death cert as “female” Campion. 3 months later Samuel dies, I can find no further evidence of wife Elizabeth maiden name Doubleday.
So do you think the 3 children were taken by the authorities at the time, where would I start looking? In that time would it have been the Workhouse? Any help as ever much appreciated

[CaroleW]

Thread referred to above

https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=7511.msg7028744#msg7028744

Samuel died March qtr 1884 - there is an Elizabeth Campion marriage in Notts in that same qtr & another in 1886 - have you already discounted both marriages?

If she & Samuel separated after the court case - she may have taken up with somebody else & married as soon as Samuel died.  Bit hasty but it happened

Children may be with her in 1891 under her new married name

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2DD7-WLK

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2DJ9-X1Q

[Tempest2]

CaroleW thanks for the reply. Great minds think alike!! After posting this, this morning I thought the same, did Elizabeth re-marry. Yes I too have Samuel death 1st qtr 1884. I think I've found it, the marriage 1st qtr 1886 has her marrying an Irishman called William Ward. In the 1891 census the one daughter I knew about Mary is there as a step-daughter, but theres a new child, not surprisingly called Samuel born 1881 died 1911. But still no sign of the two brothers Alfred Henry and John?? My search goes on. If they were living with other relatives I haven't found them. The reason Mary didn't pop up on my census search is she was transcribed wrongly with an "E" on the end of Campion...

[trish1120]

There appears to be another Daug Bapt 22 Aug 1880, St Stephen, Nottingham
ELIZABETH ANNIE Campion
Parents SAMUEL/ELIZABETH
Father a Labourer
Abode Balloon Ct

Birth/Death Reg for her Sept Qtr 1880 on FreeBMD;

Birth Reg;
CAMPION, SAMUEL mmn DOUBLEDAY 
GRO Reference: 1881  S Quarter in NOTTINGHAM  Volume 07B  Page 295

1891 Census has a Alfred CAMPTON*** age 14 (1877) born Nottingham.
Hes a Servant in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire

Trish
 

[Tempest2]

Trish, thanks. That 1891 census for Alfred looks promising, I looked at the original record and it’s easy to see the “i” transcribed to a “t”. Although no idea where the Worthington family or Woolsthorpe fits in.....I guess it was work, and out of the slums of Balloon Court.

Another child for Samuel and Elizabeth 🙄 don’t know if that pleases me or not😉
Thank-you for your help.

Just before posting this I found death of Elizabeth Ann Campion, St. Mary’s, Nottingham Aug 1880, so maybe sadly another infant death

[sstain]

Hi
I know there was a children's home on Hartley Road Radford at that time. My Grandmother was sent there. The children were farmed out from there into work very often as servants. My grandmother was taken out of the home when she was older by an aunt and was used as a servant by her. Iv'e never found out what happened to her two brothers. Cannot trace any of them on 1901 census but they turn up 1911. Sadly there are no records remaining from the children's home. I think they called it an industrial school and they were transferred there when their mother died in the workhouse. Maybe that's what happened to your family. Mine also lived in the Sneinton area. Fortunately my mother knew that this is what had happened to her mother.

Sheila

[Annie65115]

More generally, and in trying to answer your question - I don't think there was any "in care" system as we know it in those days. If children were orphaned, for example, and were too young to work, they were either taken in by someone else, usually in the extended family, or they went into the workhouse. And since the Workhouses were funded by what amounted to local taxation, there was a constant drive to keep costs down there. (edited to add -in the late Victorian period, the workhouse system was starting to be more sympathetic towards children, and some, but by no means all, had specific homes for children to live in family-like surroundings).

The NSPCC was founded in 1884, but laws to overtly protect children from abuse and neglect didn't come into place until a few years later. My ancestors were subject to one of the very early court cases ever brought by the NSPCC (a grim claim to fame!) and the errant parent was simply told to buck up their ideas.

I recall another case in the mid 1890s where a baby was smothered (accidentally) by its drunken parents. The court was told that the local policeman had previously "cautioned" the mother for neglecting the child. No action was taken against the parents, and there's no mention of any action taken to safeguard their older child. But two years later they'd had another baby and were both back in court for neglect again and sentenced to 14 and 28 days in jail. The neighbours were apparently feeding the children, and in the next census, there was no trace of mum or any younger child, but the older one was still living with her drunken sot of a father.

So from these examples I think it's safe to say that there was no system to protect children.

[Newfloridian]

Don't know about Nottingham but the Leicester experience is quite staggering. Try looking up Middlemore Home Children, It is reckoned that  between the 1860s and the 1930s over 100,000 children were sent to Canada during what is known as the Home Children scheme. This involved children who were orphaned, abandoned or paupers on the presumption that they would benefit from a healthy and moral life in the countryside where rural families accepted them as cheap farm labour and domestic help. There are fairly extensive Canadian records which might be worth checking.

I've sent you a PM

Cheers Alan

[Tempest2]

Trish, it would seem from what Sheila has said about the Radford children's Home my Alfred Henry could easily have been there and "shipped" out as a servant/child labour.

Sheila, thanks, I am really suspecting this is where both my ancestor Alfred Henry and his brother John ended up at something like this. In todays language they were in the "system"

Annie, both of these boys lost there dad age 5 and 6, they had been brought up in the slum area's which today is Victoria shopping centre, I've an article about the Trinity Square church opposite where it said the police were scared to enter the area alone. I have a Nottingham Evening Post article from when John eventually marries with 3 children is sent to jail for 3 months for neglect of his wife and family, neighbours and the police had been feeding them, the case was brought by the NSPCC, I found him in 1911 in Nottingham/Bagthorpe prison. On the 1911 census Alfred's wife scrawls over the record "Bagthorpe prison", I don't believe he was there but it looks all too much like an angry wife.

Alan, staggering indeed, I shall look into this, a few years after the census entry above, Alfred is arrested caught by strangers and then arrested for trying to commit suicide trying to jump off Trent Bridge.....he tells the judge "I have Trouble at home". I wonder whether both he and his brother John ended up in Canada, I do know Alfred's wife eventually re-marries but I can't find death records for either. I shall try and find your PM

I have previously searched the other 3 branches of my tree, the Elliott's originally from Coventry, the Provis's from South Wales, the Eatheringtons from Uttoxeter I just knew the Campions would give me trouble!! thetas why I left them to last I guess!

by the way
I'm Darryl