Bastardy affiliation order - help in better understanding it!

[brigidmac]

Its a very interesting question that I never thought to ask .

I agre with maidenstone that it would be good to have those references on a permanent reference board

What a pleasant helpful person you found to communicate with at records office ..it sounds like they went out of their way to get you as much information as possible .

Enjoy reading up and let us know the conclusions .

[ClaireDC]

Another update - the saga goes on! It seems the question of whether men were present at these bastardy hearings at this time is incredibly difficult to answer.

The helpful archivist with whom I was discussing this is now wondering whether putative fathers were actually present. There is a column entitled “Plea” in the court record and it says “denied” in my family’s case. The archivist looked at some other bastardy hearings either side of this one and some say “denied” and some say “admitted”. We therefore think the defendants must have been present to enter these pleas. Interestingly some denied ones are dismissed for want of corroborative evidence and some are adjudged to be the father and ordered to pay. Raises the question of what constituted convincing evidence I suppose!

I am still researching and reading - it’s very tricky to find any relevant secondary source material to explain how the court process for bastardy cases worked at this time.

The question is important to me because the answer potentially rules out the possibility of my grandmother’s real biological father using another soldier’s name (DNA has shown her father was NOT the man on the bastardy record).

[Maiden Stone]

To figure out what happened here, I really need to know whether this man was present in court for the hearing or not.  It says on the court record:

name of defendant, age if known: [his name]
plea: denied

Would he have been present to enter a plea?  It doesn't say his age which obviously he would have known so it made me wonder whether maybe he wasn't and this was just the info my great grandmother gave.  Did men turn up for these?  Was an absence just interpreted as plea denied?  Any experience of these and any thoughts?

Was the plea the allegation by Keziah that Michael was the father of her child? The plea was denied for lack of evidence.
That's how I interpret it on a 2nd reading.
It's the first one I've seen for the time period. I only know about 19th century affiliation & maintenance orders. A 3xGGF was named as father of an illegitimate child in a petition to quarter sessions in 1823. He was ordered to pay a weekly amount for upkeep. Witness names on the petition were parish officials. He'd already been named as the baby's father in the baptism register. The child died when he was 7 and names of both parents were in the burial register. It was a small town and both parents belonged to families who'd lived there for centuries - everyone would have known everyone else's business.

[ClaireDC]

The men’s names appear in the defendant column and the next column is for the plea - so I think that’s the plea the men entered. Some say denied and some admitted. I don’t think the women could have entered pleas for them in their absence - surely they would all say admitted?! The judgement is in another column, some dismissed and some granted.

I think it must have been easier for the women in earlier times when the parish was involved!

[Maiden Stone]

The men’s names appear in the defendant column and the next column is for the plea - so I think that’s the plea the men entered. Some say denied and some admitted. I don’t think the women could have entered pleas for them in their absence - surely they would all say admitted?! The judgement is in another column, some dismissed and some granted.

I think it must have been easier for the women in earlier times when the parish was involved!

Yes. I think that's right. He denied the offence. Previously I was understanding it as her petition (her pleading) was denied.
 The charge was dismissed for lack of corroborating evidence. It was only her word against his.
Looking at the dates, the court hearing was only a couple of weeks after the child was born. If the alleged father was in the army he may not have been able to be present in court. Could he have entered his plea (his denial) by letter? Internal post in Britain was quick then. The summons and his reply may have taken only a few days if he was stationed in Britain. If he was abroad there would be no chance he could have been in court. 

It may have been easier when it was the responsibility of the parish to chase up fathers before 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act. Apparently if they'd got to the stage of taking an alleged father to court, the onus was then on him to prove he couldn't have been the father. Legislators of the 1834 Act considered that the previous system wasn't fair to men.   

[ClaireDC]

Thanks for your reply. He was based in the same city at the time - my great grandmother lived about a mile up the road from his barracks! His regiment was posted abroad later that year but was definitely still there at the time of the hearing.

I read that some women brought witnesses with them. I think the corroborative evidence they needed must have been a witness account. There is actually a female name also on the court record underneath my great grandmother’s name - it was her neighbour. Maybe she brought her as a witness, not that it worked.