Found Illegitimate births including father's names - Lambeth

[~buttons~]

Found these births/baptism parish records for
Lambeth Lying in Hospital, [York Street] Surrey about 1840 - 1870

The 1853 partial page below show both parents names when child is illegitimate. Includes both occupations and their individual addresses.

Obviously some of these children were registered outside the Lambeth area - and some used Father's surname, others used Mum's name.

 Imagine someone with a brick wall finding this info! It would be a wonderful find.

Hope it's useful for someone.


EDIT: These Baptisms are on Ancestry

[louisa maud]

That is interesting, wish j could find my Henry  Bragg birth or baptism.
Thank you Button's.

LM

[jim1]

I have a Birth Certificate of an illegitimate child with father's name on it.
I've never seen one before or since.
I wonder how they persuaded the fathers to come forward.

[melba_schmelba]

The General Lying in Hospital's registers go some way back, including birth dates I think before 1837. It would list the person's home parish, and even give sponsors' names who paid for the mother & child's care. So it is a bit different to your average church register. Actually many if not most birth fathers of illegitimate children were traced, since they became burdens on parishes or poor law districts, but the details are not usually in baptismal registers or birth certificates, but you find them in bastardy returns or bonds, parish vestry minutes or in the quarter sessions.

[coombs]

The General Lying in Hospital's registers go some way back, including birth dates I think before 1837. It would list the person's home parish, and even give sponsors' names who paid for the mother & child's care. So it is a bit different to your average church register. Actually many if not most birth fathers of illegitimate children were traced, since they became burdens on parishes or poor law districts, but the details are not usually in baptismal registers or birth certificates, but you find them in bastardy returns or bonds, parish vestry minutes or in the quarter sessions.

And a knobstick wedding or shotgun wedding, where the father was made to do the decent thing before the baby arrived. But yes, those bastardy bonds/returns/quarter sessions can be helpful depending on the survival rate. I knew of the term shotgun wedding, but only heard of the term knobstick wedding about a year ago, where the man believed to be the father was made to marry the expectant mother by the parish, such as the overseers etc.

[Jebber]

I have a Birth Certificate of an illegitimate child with father's name on it.
I've never seen one before or since.
I wonder how they persuaded the fathers to come forward.

It was only after 1875 that it became compulsory for the father  to attend if he was named on the birth certificate of an illegitimate child. Before that date often fictitious names were men were named. I have come across many examples.

[louisa maud]

A relation of mine born circa 1895 was shown as a child of someone who was supposed to have been dead, the mother took someone completely different to court  and got payments from him, a married man, haven't found a baptism so far, it does somewhat intrigue me, no DNA in those days, I suppose she accused him and he coughed up as they say, also took another man who she had 10 other children with to court for maintenance for next  child down, who she  never married.
Lm

[Top-of-the-hill]

  I have seen fathers' names in baptism registers, but these are all in small villages where the parson would have had a good idea of the culprit! I have never checked this, but perhaps they were "encouraged" to marry afterwards.

[coombs]

I notice in the 1853 Lying In Hospital image above, the first couple were both servants, and 2 of the other women were servants as well, so it does of course seem common for mothers of baseborn children to have been working in domestic service at the time, often meaning the father was sometimes a fellow man servant, but the 2nd entry of the above image the father was a carpenter and the 3rd a medical student.