FOCUS ON: CHILDHOOD RECORDS
As more records go online, Sue Wilkes explains how exploring your ancestors’ early lives can take your research to a new level
Learn about your ancestors’ early years with Sue Wilkes
Most family historians concentrate their research on the adult lives of their forebears. Apart from birth records and occasional appearances in the census, we spend a lot of time looking for marriage, death or work records that reflect adult life. There is an assumption that children left few marks on official records but this is not true, and as more records go online it has become easier to fill in the details.
Birth and census records form the cornerstones of any family history research, but this feature will look at other childhood resources from health and education to criminal and Poor Law records. Even work records can apply. As with any records, not all are online, but it is worth looking at what is available, even if it doesn’t cover the part of the country you are interested in, so that you can see what the records will tell you.
Poor children
Poverty or illegitimacy led to many babies being abandoned. The Foundling Hospital, began caring for unwanted infants in 1739. The hospital’s records are held by London Metropolitan Archives ( bit.ly/ 2ktOa3u).
Impoverished or sick children stayed in the workhouse if their parents could not (or would not) care for them, and admission and discharge as well as creed registers may survive (see workhouses.org.uk to find out which records survive and where they are held for each workhouse). Some workhouse registers are also now going online at findmypast.co.uk and ancestry.co.uk. After the mid-1870s, Poor Law officials increasingly placed children with foster parents or boarded them out in ‘cottage homes’, a system that was always preferred in Scotland over the poorhouse.
After Poor Law boards were abolished in 1929, local authorities took over many of their functions. Local authority records may include information about children’s homes and council-run nurseries. Many children’s homes were run by charities and some, like Barnardo’s, still hold their records. If you think an ancestor may have spent time in a children’s home, then Peter Higginbotham’s website childrenshomes.org.uk is worth visiting. Charities such as Barnardo’s also arranged adoptions ( bit.ly/ 2kL9Y77).
Vaccinations
In a bid to combat smallpox, it became compulsory to vaccinate children in 1853 in England and Wales and 1863 in Scotland. Compulsory vaccination was abolished in 1949. Although survival rates for these records is patchy, they can include date of birth and address of the child as well as name and occupation of the father. Some records include the maiden name of the mother. Ancestry has digitised the vaccination register for Newport Pagnell 1909-1927. Some vaccination registers for Glasgow (1801-1854) are on archive.org.
Apprenticeships
Parish overseers apprenticed paupers to factory masters, chimney sweeps, or as domestic or farm workers, and others until they were 21. Parish apprenticeship records can be found amongst the Poor Law records at county
archives. Ancestry has recently digitised the collection held by Dorset History Centre.
Better-off parents apprenticed their children to artisans to learn crafts such as carpentry, and indentures may be held locally with more going online all the time. Also, the Society of Genealogists holds a collection. Registers showing duties paid on apprenticeships (1710-1811) are available on Ancestry.
Work records
Although most children had always worked alongside their parents to some extent, the Industrial Revolution led to thousands of children working in factories. From 1833, registers were kept of young mill workers; although few of these registers survive, it is worth checking with the county record office where they will be found within the records of the relevant mill.
Children were also found in foundries, ironworks, and even coal mines. An 1842 investigation came across four year olds dragging heavy loads of coal underground.
Back to school
The 1833 Factory Act required mill owners to allow children under 13 two hours of schooling a day, although this was rarely enforced until the Act was updated in 1844.
Many working children attended Sunday schools run by churches. The most famous advocate of Sunday schools, Robert Raikes, founded some in Gloucester after witnessing child pin-makers playing in the street during church services. By 1851, there were over 2.3 million Sunday scholars and of these over 935,000 attended schools attached to Anglican churches. Some Sunday schools would not accept children as pupils if their clothes were too tattered, which resulted in the rise of ‘Ragged schools’ that offered basic tuition. Children in the care of the Poor Law Guardians were educated in the workhouse or special institutions like the Swinton Industrial School or the training ship the Exmouth (recently added to Ancestry).
Wealthier families had their children taught by tutors at home at first. Boys were sent to grammar or public schools; girls went to private day schools or boarding schools. Records of these schools may be held at the local record office, although check first with the school as many maintain their own archives offering a wealth of information about past pupils including photographs, records of achievement and even details of good and bad behaviour!
Lower middle-class parents generally sent their children to the British (nonconformist) and National (Anglican) Schools run by churches using the ‘monitorial’ system of education, where older students were used to teach the younger ones. Large numbers of admission registers and log-books for National Schools in England and Wales from the 1870s to 1914 have been digitised and are available at Findmypast or participating archives. Admission registers have parents’ names and addresses, and may include siblings. Log books record the
An 1842 investigation came across four year olds dragging heavy loads of coal underground
day-to-day running of schools, but sometimes mention individuals. The Scottish Education Act of 1872 brought its various schools under the umbrella of the state and most surviving school registers and log books post-date this.
Health records
The Historic Hospital Admission Records Project ( hharp.org) offers free access to transcribed records from four children’s hospitals: three in London (including Great Ormond Street) and the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in
Glasgow. Records for other hospitals will usually be held at local record offices. The Hospital Records Database is the best place to discover what records have survived and where they are held ( www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/hospitalrecords).
Criminal youth
You may discover a physical description or photo of your child ancestor if they committed a crime. The age of criminal responsibility was seven years; when a child turned 14 (later 16), they were treated as an adult in the eyes of the law.
The first juveniles-only penal institution opened in 1838 on the Isle of Wight, housing over 300 boys, but adult prisons still took children if no juvenile facilities were available. In 1843, over 100 children under ten were inmates of Edinburgh Prison.
Industrial schools
While in prison, children were given religious instruction and taught literacy skills. However, charities like the Philanthropic Society believed that prison was inappropriate for children. Reformatories or industrial schools educated child offenders and gave them skills so they could earn a living. Some were ‘training ships’ like the Akbar on the Mersey. Magistrates were given powers to send child beggars and vagrants to these schools, typically for five years.
Life for our child ancestors was not all work and no play. Schools and societies ran clubs, sports teams, and day trips. You may be lucky enough to find photographs in regional collections or local newspapers. In the 20th century, youth organisations like the Boys’ Brigade, Scouts and Guides became popular, and are still going strong today.