Find Ancestors

Does anyone know when this came into being? Was it 1837 like the normal birth index? And is it available to the public? Thanks.

I have never heard of this! OC

I'm not sure how they could have a register? Surely if the baby was abandoned then they wouldn't know its name or those of its parents? UPDATE: Apparently there is one!! Held at the GRO, I haven't found out when it started yet though... ANOTHER UPDATE!! In England and Wales since 1977 babies in this category have been registered separately on the Abandoned Children’s Register after six months to a year of police inquiries. Sam x

Found info, see here: http://www.lancashire.gov.uk/environment/birthsmarriagesdeaths/births/acr.asp If you google ABANDONED CHILDREN REGISTER there are quite a few links. Sam x

Good lord! Well, I never knew that! Pity they didnt start it before the 1970s, but there you go. I assume that prior to this, abandoned babies were registered in the normal way, by the authority which had responsibility for them, with made-up names and a query date of birth. OC

Yeah, in the old days if a baby was found in the parish then they sometimes gave it a name to do with where they were found - like John Church, or Mary Hedge - that kind of thing.

Alexandra I know that pre-registration, abandoned babies were often given the name of the parish which took financial responsibility for them. Later, Workhouses would name them by a strict alphabetical system, starting with A for a forename, and Y for the surname. I cannot help thinking - how very sad for someone to find they are on a special register for abandoned children. I do wonder what the purpose of such a register is? Does it perhaps carry more information than a normal birth registration? OC

Sorry folks, had to log off. Many thanks for your replies!! V appreciated.

I suppose the abandoned babies register would give details of where the child was found, details possibly of any enquiry into its parents etc. Who knows whether in years to come their parents might one day come forward and want to claim their child and there would have to be some way of recording these children outside of the usual BMD registers.

Abandoned children The General Register Office at Southport holds the following registers: The Thomas Coram Register (also known as the Foundling Hospital Register) The Abandoned Children Register The Thomas Coram Register is a list of children given into the care of the Foundling Hospital between the years 1853 and 1948. A charitable refuge for abandoned children, it was set up by Thomas Coram in 1739 for the 'education and maintenance of exposed and deserted young children' in central London. Previously known as the Thomas Coram Foundation for Children, today the charity is known as Coram Family and it continues to work with children separated from their parents and to support vulnerable families. All enquiries about children raised in the Foundling Hospital and applications for certificates of register entries should be made via the charity: Coram Family Coram Community Campus 49 Mecklenburgh Square London WC1N 2QA Telephone: +44 (0)20 7520 0300 www.coram.org.uk The charity will then contact our Corrections and Re-registration Section who will issue the certificate. Please note that only short versions carrying the child?s details - but not those of the parents - are issued from this register. The Abandoned Children Register Since 1977 the births of abandoned babies whose parentage is unknown have been recorded in the Abandoned Children Register at the General Register Office. Prior to this, such births were registered in the birth register at the register office for the district where the child was found. To obtain a certificate from the Abandoned Children Register, you can either go to the Family Records Centre or apply in writing to: GRO Corrections PO Box 476 Southport PR8 2WJ In both cases you will need to provide sufficient details to clearly identify the birth record from which a certificate is required. Please note that only short certificates carrying the child?s details - but not those of the parents - are issued from this register. For information on fees, please see Certificate fees. If you have any questions about the Abandoned Children Register please contact Corrections & Re-registration Section at the General Register Office on +44 (0)151 471 4806 or by e-mail: corrections.&[email protected] The charity Norcap (National Organisation for Counselling Adoptees and their Parents) also holds a foundling register. Tel: +44 (0) 1865 875000. E-mail: [email protected].

The first children were admitted to the Foundling Hospital on 25 March 1741, into a temporary house located in Hatton Garden. At first, no questions were asked about child or parent, but a distinguishing token was put on each child by the parent. These were often marked coins, trinkets, pieces of cotton or ribbon, verses written on scraps of paper. Clothes, if any, were carefully recorded. One entry is, 'Paper on the breast, clout on the head.' The applications became too numerous, and a system of balloting with red, white and black balls was adopted. Children were seldom taken after they were twelve months old. On reception they were sent to wet nurses in the countryside, where they stayed until they were about four or five years old. At sixteen the girls were generally apprenticed as servants for four years; at fourteen, boys became apprentices in varying occupations for seven years. There was a small benevolent fund for adults. In September 1742, the stone of the new Hospital was laid in the area known as Bloomsbury, lying north of Great Ormond Street and west of Gray's Inn Lane. The Hospital was designed by Theodore Jacobsen as a plain brick building with two wings and a chapel, built around an open courtyard. The western wing was finished in October 1745. An eastern wing was added in 1752 'in order that the girls might be kept separate from the boys'. The new Hospital was described as 'the most imposing single monument erected by eighteenth century benevolence' and became London's most popular charity. In 1756, the House of Commons came to a resolution that all children offered should be received, that local receiving places should be appointed all over the country, and that the funds should be publicly guaranteed. A basket was accordingly hung outside the hospital; the maximum age for admission was raised from two to twelve months, and a flood of children poured in from country workhouses. In less than four years 14,934 children were presented, and a vile trade grew up among vagrants, who sometimes became known as 'Coram Men,' of promising to carry children from the country to the hospital, an undertaking which they often did not perform or performed with great cruelty. Of these 15,000 only 4400 lived to be apprenticed out. The total expense was about £500,000, which alarmed the House of Commons. After throwing out a bill which proposed to raise the necessary funds by fees from a general system of parochial registration, they came to the conclusion that the indiscriminate admission should be discontinued. The hospital, being thus thrown on its own resources, adopted a system of receiving children with considerable sums (e.g., £100), which sometimes led to them being reclaimed by the parent. This was finally stopped in 1801; and it henceforth became a fundamental rule that no money was received. The committee of inquiry had to be satisfied of the previous good character and present necessity of the mother, and that the father of the child had deserted it and the mother, and that the reception of the child would probably replace the mother in the course of virtue and in the way of an honest livelihood. At that time, illegitimacy carried deep stigma, especially for the mother but also for the child. All the children at the Foundling Hospital were those of unmarried women, and they were all first children of their mothers. The principle was in fact that laid down by Henry Fielding in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling: 'Too true I am afraid it is that many women have become abandoned and have sunk to the last degree of vice [i.e. prostitution] by being unable to retrieve the first slip.' There were some unfortunate incidents, such as the case of Elizabeth Brownrigg (1720-1767), a severely abusive Fetters Lane midwife who mercilessly whipped and otherwise maltreated her adolescent female apprentice domestic servants, leading to the death of one, Mary Clifford, from her injuries, neglect and infected wounds. After the Foundling Hospital authorities investigated, Brownrigg was convicted of murder and sentenced to hang at Tyburn. Thereafter, the Foundling Hospital instituted more thorough investigation of its prospective apprentice masters and mistresses.