12 children but only 5 baptized

[Lisa in California]

Welcome to RootsChat.

In addition to the above replies, I don’t know if this option was possible then, but could the children have been baptized in a relative’s church?

I have one family with the same scenario as your Pages (I couldn’t locate the younger children).  It turned out that the family relocated from one town to a neighbouring town (in a different county) but still had family back in the first town.  One child, after the move, was baptized in the old town, the rest were baptized in their new location.

[Lisa in California]

It looks like you Pages were living in Brighthelmstone Civil Parish in 1851.  If the current Sussex map matches the 1851 Brighthelmstone, the family was about a 15 mile drive from Brighton.

Perhaps they either chose not to baptize the younger children or there was some sort of issue after they moved?

Update: Spring Street appears to be located in Brighton.  So, Brighton was in Brighthelmstone Civil Parish?  Sorry, I’m not familiar with this part of Sussex.  It looks like they still were in Brighton in 1851.     There goes my moving away theory.

[Maiden Stone]

I had the same thought as Jebber, that the parents considered baptism unnecessary for the younger children.
Have you searched later baptism registers in case some of the children were baptised when older?

[Lisa in California]

I didn’t spend a lot of time verifying “facts”, but
did William die c1861
did Phoebe remarry before 1871
were most of the children not living with Phoebe in 1871?

If so (I think this was already mentioned), perhaps the family couldn’t afford the cost of the baptisms?  Perhaps William had been ill for a long time and the family was not well off by 1845?

The above is most likely far fetched, but just thought I would add it.

Added:  do you know if William had any siblings?

[maddys52]

I also wondered if the subsequent children were baptised in a different parish, I have heard of instances where the family apparently didn't like the new vicar and so went to a neighbouring parish for baptisms. My grandmother whilst born in the middle of London was baptised at the parish church of her grandparents some 50 miles away.

Also there is the possibility they were "privately baptised". Whilst sometimes private baptisms were then "received into the church" or other such expressions that you see in Parish Registers, they needn't necessarily be any record of them. Baptism possibly only required for future parish relief claims.

[Lisa in California]

I also wondered if the subsequent children were baptised in a different parish, I have heard of instances where the family apparently didn't like the new vicar and so went to a neighbouring parish for baptisms…

According to one website (I’ve not checked facts for accuracy):
Henry Michell Wagner was Vicar of Brighton between 1824 and 1870.  A lot went on during his time there: churches were built; he was in the centre of controversies and disputes; church rates were in dispute including a dispute in 1841; St. Nicholas was “falling into disrepair” (this was mentioned after the 1841 dispute), etc.

I don’t know if any of the above was true, but the information (and a lot more!) was found here
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Michell_Wagner

Could the above have contributed to the younger Page children not being baptized in St. Nicholas. Or, perhaps one of the previous suggestions was what actually occurred.

[maddys52]

That's very interesting Lisa!

As an aside Time Runner, have you seen the reports into the suicide of Capt John EDWARDS in Brighton 1850? It appears the razor used belonged to William Alfred PAGE, hairdresser, I assume your William. Lots of reports in the papers including eg:
Thursday,  May 9, 1850
Publication: Daily News

[Jebber]

The reply by Maiden Stone reminds me of a large family in my husband’s line.

 No baptism has been found for the first child, then all the following children were Baptised until the last two. They were finally Baptised as adults, when one had already been married for three years, the other for seven years.

Sometimes you find adult baptisms just before they marry, but why the younger two waited until several years after marriage remains a mystery, it is not as if they were close to death.

Sometimes we just have to accept we will never know why these oddities occur.

[Time Runner]

Thanks again, everyone, for the all the replies. It's made for fascinating reading and given me lots of food for thought!

Forgive me if I don't reply to every point raised.

Spring Street appears to be located in Brighton.  So, Brighton was in Brighthelmstone Civil Parish?  Sorry, I’m not familiar with this part of Sussex.  It looks like they still were in Brighton in 1851.     There goes my moving away theory.

The civil parish was associated with the Church of St Nicholas (Brighton), and "Brighton" and "Brighthelmstone" are essentially different names for the same place, Brighthelmstone being the older of the two.

At some point between 1841 and '51, the family did move but only within the parish.

As an aside Time Runner, have you seen the reports into the suicide of Capt John EDWARDS in Brighton 1850?

I haven't, no! How exciting! Which archive did you find that in, and how did you access it? (I'm new to this genealogy malarkey and am still finding my feet).


Yesterday I found an article that stated: "the religious census of 1851 revealed that half the population did not attend any church on the census Sunday, while of those who did, only about half attended the established Church."* So perhaps the later children weren't baptized because of a change of faith or simple lack of interest. The article opened my eyes to the fact that much of the working class greatly distrusted the established church at that time. I had an idea of devout Victorians slavishly attending church on Sundays – an idea which turns out to have been utterly wrong!



_{*Stewart J Brown, "The national churches and the Union in nineteenth-century Britain and Ireland," in Bonds of Union: Practices and Representations of Political Union in the United Kingdom (18th-20th centuries), eds. Isabelle Bour and Antoine Mioche (Tours: Presses universitaires François-Rabelais, 2005), 57-78, online paragraph 22, https://doi.org/10.4000/books.pufr.4041 (accessed 8 November 2022).}