Interesting but gruesome info. re some inhanbitants of Portobello
Scotland in the nineteenth century
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8. Health and living conditions
Section 8.11: Infants
1. Protection of infant life. Report from the Select Committee. Proceedings, minutes of evidence, appendix and index, 1871.
Vol. VII, xx, 328p. (Sessional no. 372)
Chairman: The Rt. Hon. Spencer Horatio Walpole.
"to enquire as to the best means of preventing the destruction of the lives of infants put out to nurse for hire by their parents."
The Committee brought to light instances of children being hired out for money, with little concern on the part of their parents as to what became of them, possibly with the intention that their lives should be ended. Such cases were found mostly in London or large Scottish towns such as Edinburgh, Glasgow or Greenock. The Committee drew a distinction between such cases of criminal neglect and non-criminal cases.
The main recommendations of the report were that compulsory registration of all births and deaths should be extended to England and that lying-in establishments, and nurses and their houses should all be registered. Licences should be obtained by anybody who took for hire two or more infants under one year of age for longer than a day.
Scottish evidence
John Brendon Curgenven, a surgeon (p. 69) reported that the boarding-out system of workhouse children worked very well in Scotland and did not tend to increase illegitimacy.
Dr. William Farr, head of Statistical Department of the General Registry Office (p. 167) reported on the registration of births. Under the Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages (Scotland) Act, 1860 a penalty could be incurred in Scotland and Ireland, but not in England, for failure to give information of a birth having occurred. He took exception to the Scottish law by which illegitimate children could be legitimised by subsequent marriage.
[page 159]
William M. Cameron, special commissioner of the North British Daily Mail, Glasgow (pp. 195-294) had taken part in a sanitary commission inquiry into infant mortality in Glasgow and, more recently, an inquiry into baby farming in Scotland.
He had noticed the neglected and emaciated appearance of many children in the care of nurses in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Greenock. The food they were given was insufficient and the mortality rate very high. Many of these children had been entered in burial societies, so that their nurses gained an additional sum of money on their death. He had discovered the existence of a baby farm at Portobello where at least eight children had been taken for lump sums. By inserting an advert in a newspaper and receiving 400 applications in reply, the commissioners concluded that there were many other baby farms in Scotland, conducted on a large scale.
Charles Cameron, M.D., editor of the North British Daily Mail (pp. 204-211) divided the baby farms in Scotland into three classes. First, the criminal class, secondly, those taking children without any culpable intention and, thirdly, people taking in women for confinement and undertaking to get rid of their children.
A return of the death-rate in Glasgow per 1,000 persons on an average of nine years and of illegitimate births on an average of seven years was handed in by Mr. William Cameron (p. 273).
2. Infant Life Protection Bill. Report from the Select Committee. Proceedings, minutes of evidence, appendix, 1890.
Vol. XIII, viii, 104p. (Sessional no. 346)
Chairman: Charles Beilby Stuart-Wortley.
"ordered that the Infant Life Protection Bill be read a second time, and committed to a Select Committee of seventeen members."
William Henderson, Chief Constable of the City of Edinburgh (pp. 15-21) had made a report in 1889 at the request of the city council suggesting amendments to the Infant Life Protection Act, 1872. He recommended that it should be extended to include single children and those under five years old. The defects of the Act had been brought to his notice when a woman named Jessie King was tried and executed in Edinburgh. She was convicted of murdering two children under her care and she was suspected of being responsible for the deaths of other children whom she had adopted. She had obtained these children by answering advertisements for adoption, but she was not registered under the Infant Life Protection Act.
Mr. Henderson had inserted similar advertisements for the adoption of children in the local newspapers, and received 219 replies. He then made detailed inquiries concerning the applicants, amassing details of their income, accommodation, how many had a family of their own, how many similar advertisements they had answered before and their reasons for doing so, how many children they had adopted, how many of these survived and whether they were insured. Applications were from all parts of Scotland but about half were from Edinburgh, and none of the applicants was registered. It became apparent that the Infant Life Protection Act, 1872 was practically a dead letter. Mr. Henderson recommended that police officers should co-operate with the registrars of births and deaths and made a regular search of the registers to discover whether a number of children had died in the same house.
[page 160]
A society had recently been established in Edinburgh under the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act, 1889, and the directors of this association worked in cooperation with the police. Powers of search were granted to the police by this Act but applications for warrants to enter premises were seldom made.
Clause 1 of the Infant Life Protection Bill stated "it shall not be lawful for any person to retain or receive for hire or reward in that behalf any infant under the age of 5 years for the purpose of nursing and maintaining the infant apart from its parents for a longer period than 24 hours, except in a house which has been registered as provided by the principal Act". Mr. Henderson did not think that the working classes of Scotland would resent registration.
Appendix 2: by Mr. Henderson showing the results of his inquiry.
Table I: Dates of advertisements, the number of replies, the applicants' wages per week, the number of applicants' own children, the number of apartments, the number who applied more than once and whether they applied for "gain" or "pure desire for child".
Table II: Details of the number of children adopted, how many survived, the number of premiums received and the amounts paid.