Kent Academic Repository Full text document (pdf) Citation for published version Pearman, Joanne (2017) Bastards, Baby Farmers, and Social Control in Victorian Britain. Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) thesis, University of Kent,. DOI Link to record in KAR https://kar.kent.ac.uk/62866/ Document Version UNSPECIFIED Copyright & reuse Content in the Kent Academic Repository is made available for research purposes. Unless otherwise stated all content is protected by copyright and in the absence of an open licence (eg Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher, author or other copyright holder. Versions of research The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record. Enquiries For any further enquiries regarding the licence status of this document, please contact: [email protected] If you believe this document infringes copyright then please contact the KAR admin team with the take-down information provided at http://kar.kent.ac.uk/contact.html Bastards, Baby Farmers, and Social Control in Victorian Britain , Joanne Pearman PhD Thesis Kent Law School University of Kent April 2017 Thesis Word Count 98,614 Abstract This thesis examines the development and enactment of legislation between 1834 and 1897 which sought to deal with the problems associated with the support of the bastard child. This Victorian legislation, reflecting a new paradigm of state intervention, represents the first example, apart from the obvious case of the criminal law, that eventually authorised in 1897 state encroachment into the domestic home. The thesis is divided into three main parts. In the first part, I examine the Poor Law of 1834 and the bastardy legislation which followed to show how lawmakers sought to influence the behaviour of those women likely to produce illegitimate children. I argue that these provisions served not to deter women from having children but resulted in a lack of possibility of practical help which might have enabled women to care for their own children. One possible solution for a woman who faced the problem of providing care for her illegitimate child was to entrust them to someone else and to pay for childcare, in effect to employ a baby farmer. The second part of the thesis examines the trials of four baby farmers charged with the murder of children in their care. I consider the cases of Charlotte Winsor (1865) and Margaret Waters (1870), which brought to wide public attention the practices of baby farming and marked a shift of official attention from the mothers of illegitimate children to those paid to care for them. I then consider the cases of Jessie King (1889) and Amelia Dyer (1896), a generation later than the other two cases, but which confirmed the earlier construction of baby farmers as child murderers. In the third part of the thesis I evaluate the formal response of government to the issues raised by the dangers to child health posed by some baby farmers. This consists of analysis of the minutes of three select committees (1871, 1890, and 1896), constituted to consider legal solutions to the issue of baby farming. I examine the evidence presented to the committees in which some witnesses advocated direct inspection and regulation of the homes in which the baby farmers carried out their trade, in effect to take social control into the domestic circle. The first two committees resisted this, but the third resolved to create a regime of notification, mandatory inspection, and local-authority supervision which brought social control directly into the private home. This led to the Infant Life Preservation Act 1897, the foundation of a power of state inspection of childcare within the private home. Table of Contents Chapter 1: ‘The Tribe of Ogres who Fatten on Little Children’ ............................................ 1 1.1 Thesis Structure ............................................................................................................. 10 Chapter 2: A Bastard Shall Not Enter into the Congregation of the Lord ........................... 14 2.1 Time Period: 1834-1897 ...................................................................................................... 15 2.2 Women, the Poor laws, and Bastard Children ..................................................................... 18 2.3 Controlling and Governing the Poor .................................................................................... 26 2.4 Policing the Poor ................................................................................................................. 37 2.5 Conclusions ......................................................................................................................... 39 Chapter Three: A generation drunk on Malthusian wine .................................................. 42 3.1 Academic Commentary ....................................................................................................... 43 3.2 Thomas Malthus ................................................................................................................. 46 3.3 The New Poor Law .............................................................................................................. 48 3.3.1 The Royal Commission on the Poor Laws of 1834 ............................................................... 49 3.3.2 Legislating for Control ......................................................................................................... 53 3.4 Poor Laws In Action ............................................................................................................ 58 3.5 Further Adjustment and Change ......................................................................................... 61 3.6 Conclusions ......................................................................................................................... 65 Chapter Four: Even to the very last, baby’s road to the grave is made safe and smooth .. 67 4.1 The Workhouse ................................................................................................................... 68 4.3 Charity ................................................................................................................................ 75 4.4 Support from the Family and Community ........................................................................... 78 4.5 Infanticide .......................................................................................................................... 80 4.7 Conclusions ......................................................................................................................... 84 Chapter Five : ‘A Good Home, with a Mother’s Love and Care, is Offered to Any Respectable Person wishing her Child to be Entirely Adopted’ ........................................ 87 5.1 Structure of the Industry ..................................................................................................... 87 5.1 Baby Farming ..................................................................................................................... 89 5.1.1 Emergence of Baby-Farming ............................................................................................... 91 5.2 Defining the Industry ......................................................................................................... 93 5.2.1 The Lying-in House .............................................................................................................. 95 5.2.2 Neglect ................................................................................................................................ 96 5.2.3 ‘Adoption’ or ‘Putting out to Nurse’ ................................................................................... 97 5.2.4 Procuring the Infant Child ................................................................................................... 98 5.2.5 The Foster Homes .............................................................................................................. 100 5.2.6 Clientele ............................................................................................................................ 103 5.3 Contemporary Views of the Industry ................................................................................. 104 5.3 Conclusions ...................................................................................................................... 110 Chapter 6: ‘You will know all mine by the ribbons round their neck’ .............................. 111 6.1 The Early Baby-Farmers .................................................................................................... 112 6.1.1 Charlotte Winsor (1865) .................................................................................................... 112 6.1.2 Margaret Waters (1870) .................................................................................................... 117 6.2 The Later Baby-Farmers .................................................................................................... 125 6.2.1 ‘Jessie King, like her paramour Pearson, has seen better times’ ...................................... 127 6.2.2 Amelia Dyer: ‘The Woman Who Murdered Babies for Money’ ........................................ 133 6.3 Conclusions 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