Babies abandoned in the community
The Courier and our friends at the West Lothian Local History Library have teamed up to take readers on a trip down Memory Lane.
This week: Foundlings – West Lothian’s abandoned children.
‘On Sabbath the 24th of April 1796, a female child was found exposed in Linlithgow.
She was thought to be two or three weeks old. She was baptized Robina Linlithgow.’
‘Exposed’ was the 18th century terms for abandoned.
Exposed babies were not uncommon. The shame of giving birth to an illegitimate child was great.
To expose a child carried a prison sentence, as confirmed by the records of Linlithgow Jail.
In 1824, Jean Dempster was convicted of ‘exposing a female infant near to the village of Three mile town.’ She was sentenced to a mere 14 days of imprisonment.
It may have influenced the authorities that while the mother remained in jail, a wet nurse had to be found and paid for by them, so they would be anxious to return the child to its mother.
Robina’s Mother: By leaving her baby in a frequented area with some shelter from the weather, the mother of Robina surely intended her baby to be found and cared for, but her situation will never be known.
Was she an unmarried woman, or a woman too poor to keep yet another child?
She would have known that the baby, when found, would be handed over to the care of the Kirk Session. One of their first concerns was its spiritual well-being: the little girl was quickly baptized and given the name Robina Linlithgow.
Naming foundlings: The significance of the name Robina is unknown but it was common, for foundlings to be given as their surname, the name of the parish whose funds would have to support them.
Poor funds: Until 1845, funds for the poor came from church offerings. When these were not enough, an assessment was made of the parish, half of which had to be paid by the landowners and half by the other inhabitants. In an era of early deaths, orphaned children were common.
Foundlings and orphans were generally put out to foster care, fed, clothed and schooled until they were ten or eleven. Thereafter they would be found a job or apprenticeship and became self-supporting.
Robina’s upbringing: The treatment of foundlings appears in the records of Linlithgow Parish Church, recording the outlay on Robina Linlithgow – by then known as Robina Lithgow.
First of all, a wet nurse had to be found then when she was weaned, a woman had to be found who would be willing to look after and feed the child in return for a fee. Robina remained in the care of Mary Macfarlane, probably either a widow or a single woman. In the treasurer’s accounts of 1797, we read that Mary Macfarlane was paid for four quarters at 25 shillings per quarter‘ for keeping the Foundling’.
Aged five or six, Robina had been sent to school, and the fees were paid by the Session: ‘to one year’s schooling, 5s 6d’.
By 1808, Robina aged 12, was considered old enough to be put out to work to earn her own keep but it was not a success and the girl returned to Mary Macfarlane for another year.
Robina disappears from the records in 1809. At the age of 13, she entered employment and ceased to be a charge upon the parish. A search of the records has failed to find any mention of the marriage of a Robina Linlithgow. At 13, she disappears into the mists of history, and perhaps died young and unmarried, leaving no descendants.