Kent Online Parish Clerks Bromley page already has links to two files of children boarded out from 1885 onwards 1885-1902 and 1902-1910 and I have had a positive response to my transcripts particularly from descendants in Canada and Australia of emigrated children in these records.
I began work on a third record over a year ago working on a closed record with the supervision of Bromley Archivist Lucy Bonner.
This record is an administrative record and is completed in various hands as some of the administrative staff for the Poor Law Union seek the Guardians permission to enlist in 1915 despite being in reserved occupations.
The document is a piece of Social History as well as being valuable to the family history researcher. The development of fostering in Bromley Union by 1908 is well advanced and in 1908 the Union opened its Children's Homes built on the Wellbrook Road land acquired along with the one remaining property adjacent to the Workhouse land. This large detached house and long garden became accommodation for the Workhouse Master. The Childrens Homes were two storey buildings with eventual playgrounds segregated into Boys and Girls Homes. The opening of this accommodation ended the practice of accommodating children on adult wards in the "House" as it became known. The large number of children boarded out by 1908 and an efficient Ladies Committee of Visitors in every parish of the Union enables a clear picture of placement, regular review and integration of medical and educational achievement by the Committee as well as after care when the Board of Guardians legal responsibilities cease.
The Board of Guardians had long sought apprenticeships and training for those leaving school. The training ships for boys provided naval or merchant marine careers for young men. The entrance into domestic service and in some cases pupil teaching and professional qualification was available for girls; The Guardians also contributed to local accommodation for female servants between work as the number of domestic service openings declined as the country saw profound changes in this class system. The Guardians had also offered school leavers the opportunity to be introduced to one of the many Emigration Societies which had been established to support teenagers travelling to Commonwealth countries to enter employment. These Societies offered after care and reported to the Board of Guardians on the progress.
The post 1910 record includes lists of Children for whom the Guardians have parental Rights and Powers with their ages and lists of Boys and Girls that are adopted in 1908 with their ages.
There then follows a section which records children and the names and addresses of foster parents. This is valuable in recording the foster parents who in earlier records of the Committee may be referred to by name and village or district only. Although it is undated the majority of entries appear to be post 1910 and as names are added post 1912.
The record then contains an index page with numbered pages for children. The numbered pages then contain biographical details of the circumstances in which the child came into the Workhouse with descriptions of the parents and their whereabouts if known. The names and addresses of foster parents are entered as well as the child's date of birth. The last entries are for families of children and the efforts taken to place in one village or district to maintain links with siblings.
The breakdown of parental relationships,parental desertion, terminal health or sudden death of parents and in one case the death in war of husband and mother's subsequent alcoholism and institutional decline all illustrate the extent of adversity in young lives.
The period 1910-1918 is therefore the focus of my transcript but for many children entries continue to 1925 and therefore with permission of the Archive the entry is dated with a year range to indicate to the researcher that they can approach the archivist for permission to obtain access to the closed record (currently 1919 onwards). The closed entries are on the same page as open entries and it is possible that some individuals may still be alive. Kent Online Parish Clerks respect international privacy laws and since servers are in Canada a 100 year privacy rule is respected. Children leaving school in the post war years included in this volume often emigrated or were in need of residential care as adults due to health or disability and the Guardians could better support continuous care than the previous notion of Workhouse.
Bromley Poor Law Union had become a district hospital by 1910 providing maternity and psychiatric assessment as well as tubercular wards. The Poor Law Union had provided the Chapel register until 1896 see my earlier blog. The subsequent register of Baptisms is provided by the parish and is Farnborough Hospital Register of Baptisms to reflect this. In both of these registers the maternity ward accepts many family doctor/midwife referrals for delivery of children who are baptised as well as the chapel providing baptisms for the north west corner of Farnborough parish. The attendance of a Registrar accommodated in an office by the Maternity Ward to record Births and Deaths in the Workhouse also offers an increased likelihood of civil registration of birth of illegitimate children born there. The attendance of a Registrar continued in Farnborough Hospital until the 1990's throughout the National Health Service use of the Workhouse site as a District Hospital.
Several boarded out children were illegitimate and several are recorded as originating in London and the Home Counties. This record is therefore valuable along with the Chapel Baptismal records in locating children born to widows and single women.
There is one newspaper cutting of the sentence of hard labour for a mother who deserts her child after her husband dies in the loss of HMS Aboukir on 22 September 1914 and her previous convictions include soliciting in Chatham.
This transcript will I am sure be of interest to those interested in the history of social work in Bromley Kent as well as academic researchers and family historians. My emails from each of these groups continue and I am happy to complete this piece of local history.
The transcript will be published by Kent Online Parish Clerks in due course.
© Henry Mantell Farnborough Online Parish Clerk 2018-2019
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