Baptised in mum's maiden name but after Mum's marraige?

[Annie65115]

Here's an oddity  - or maybe it isn't? Maybe other people have come across this?

Beauchief Abbey, Derbyshire. 11 Nov 1827. There are 2 entries for the same child:

James, son of Hiram and Ann Green, Hiram a grinder -- this entry has a line through it
and
James, son of Ann Hopkinson, spinster.

But Ann and Hiram had got married in Sheffield in August of that year, ie 3 months before James's baptism. Hiram was a widower, Ann a spinster. Hiram's first wife had been buried 14 months earlier.

So maybe James was born before they married, and maybe the vicar didn't want to pretend otherwise. But at the time of the baptism, Ann wasn't a spinster. So why would this be recorded thus?

[Milliepede]

Because he wasn’t the father perhaps.

[Galium]

As Milliepede says.  Do you know how old James was when he was baptised?

[Annie65115]

I don't know his age; he's in the 1841 census aged 14 IIRC. Of course Hiram may not have been the father, but Ann wasn't a spinster when James was baptised so I thought it odd that the vicar should still have recorded her as such.

[heywood]

The vicar must have known the circumstances.
If the couple presented themselves as ‘Hiram and Ann Green’, he would have recorded the baptism as such, I think.
Maybe Ann was being truthful and/or the vicar was being pedantic.

[coombs]

As others have said, it is likely Hiram was not James' father by blood.

My 2xgreat gran had a child in October 1876, she married in December 1876 and the baby was baptised under her maiden name in January 1877, as if she was a spinster. My conclusion can be the man she married (my 2xgreat grandfather) was not the father of her first child born Oct 1876. I descend from their son born 1891.

[Pheno]

Or could it simply be that they were his actual parents but they weren't married when he was born although they did marry before his baptism, however the vicar determined to record the baptism as if it were the birth - to a female spinster with the name she held at the child's birth.

Pheno

[Annie65115]

I see that the same thoughts that crossed my mind are in everyone's head. I just wondered if anyone would think of another reason that had eluded me!

[coombs]

Even though the parents married, the child was still seen as illegitimate so perhaps the vicar recorded it as such, and decided to baptise the baby under the mother's maiden name and as a spinster. It was not until 1926 I think when the child was legitimised by the parents subsequent marriage after birth of the child.