For a subject as potentially scandalous and intriguing as illegitimacy, of relevance to historians of the family, health, sexuality, and welfare, amongst others, remarkably little has been made of it in recent decades. What we do have has come largely from the historical demography stable, most substantially from Peter Laslett (1980), Andrew Blaikie (1993), and Richard Adair (1996). Following a 2004 conference held in Cambridge, the editors of Illegitimacy in Britain, 1700–1920 attempt to update and rejuvenate the historiography by bringing together those currently working in the field, exploring the subject in a variety of geographical locales and through an imaginative variety of sources and methodological approaches. Contributors subject accepted themes to rigorous investigation, including the survival strategies of unmarried mothers, social attitudes towards bastardy, the paternity of illegitimate children, the mortal penalty of illegitimacy, and the existence of the Laslett-coined “bastardy prone sub-society”.
One of the primary aims of the book is to build on the demographic foundations of earlier work by considering the subjective experience of illegitimacy. Contributors are concerned to understand how illegitimacy was experienced by mothers, fathers, and children; and to examine how such individuals were treated by their communities, authorities, and charitable and welfare organizations. Several chapters directly represent the voices of the parents of illegitimate children—utilizing sources such as pauper letters, magistrates' court testimony, and Foundling Hospital petitions—to offer a window into the lives of unwed parents. More quantitative methodologies have been used to evaluate how the harsh inequalities of bastardy could affect infant health.
Contributors offer insights into the degree to which illegitimacy was stigmatized and controlled in the past, although with little consensus. Steven King's study of the treatment of unmarried mothers under the Old Poor Law and Thomas Nutt's examination of magistrates' proceedings in paternity cases, suggest that illegitimacy did not necessarily attract significant disapprobation; while the large degree of familial support afforded to unmarried mothers in nineteenth-century Scotland, as described by Andrew Blaikie, Eilidh Garrett and Ros Davies, suggests that illegitimacy was not greatly stigmatized within certain familial groups. Other chapters, however, explore how powerful the effect of stigma could be, and illustrate the crude ways in which social control was manifest. Liam Kennedy and Paul Gray describe a post-Famine Irish community where hardship undermined what little goodwill there could be for struggling unmarried mothers. In analysing why mortality levels were higher in illegitimate than legitimate children, Alysa Levene's study of eighteenth-century metropolitan institutions and Alice Reid's of twentieth-century Derbyshire also reveal something about the intangible, but powerful, effect of stigma.
This edited collection begins to rectify the heavily gendered bias towards women within the historiography of illegitimacy by rendering visible the historical experience of illegitimate fathers. Chapters by Nutt and John Black reflect the importance that the welfare system placed upon paternal responsibility; while Reid begins to quantify the effect of paternal absence upon infant survival. Female agency is also examined. Blaikie et al. discuss the importance of networks of support in allowing unmarried mothers to return to work; while Tanya Evans uses eighteenth-century popular literature to examine obstacles to the formation and stability of marriage, including the desertion of women during a time of imperial expansion and constant war.
While the majority of the volume focuses upon England, the Celtic fringe is given some consideration, with a chapter each on Ireland and Scotland (Wales is, unfortunately, a notable omission as no appropriate contributor could be found). However, to quibble on the locations not covered would be in some respects to miss the point. Although most of the chapters focus on particular communities, contributors well justify the areas selected and their usually comparative stance, either for the unusual richness of sources, or because it allows an exploration of the peculiarities and importance of local context upon attitudes and behaviour patterns.
This volume also prides itself on bringing together a wide variety of sources and methodological approaches. Popular literature, census and civil registration data, petty sessions court documents, parochial records, charitable and institutional sources are among those fruitfully exploited. Contributors provide a micro-historical insight into illegitimacy at the level of the individual, whilst at the same time generating interpretative frameworks with broader significance. Hence unusual sources such as health visitors' books have been quarried to reveal the socio-economic, health, and household characteristics of unmarried mothers and their children; whilst more traditionally used sources, such as Poor Law records, census and civil registration data, have been exploited to reassess and problematize many of the assumptions (relating in particular to migration and residency patterns) that underpin earlier research.
While several chapters explicitly discuss the problems of conventional demographic methods of measuring illegitimacy—particularly Kennedy and Gray, and King—it must be said that the more demographically stimulated reader will feel most at ease with the material. Those who crave qualitative sources may be a little disappointed—there is certainly still room for further research into the lived experience of illegitimacy, perhaps drawing on more unusual sources, as Evans has done here with ballads and chapbooks, and as Williams does in comparing samples of London Foundling Hospital petitions over two centuries, during which time the institution evolved from its original single purpose (care of the child) to a dual purpose which included moral reform of the mother. Since most of the sources used for this volume address the labouring classes—as the editors themselves concede—it would be particularly nice to gain some access to the upper echelons of society. On a more pedantic note, the endnotes are not provided at the end of each separate chapter, but left until the end of the volume—a minor irritation, but an odd convention in an edited volume where separate chapters are likely to be consulted.
None the less, this is a most useful addition to the historiography of illegitimacy, which investigates creatively the prevalence of and responses to illegitimacy in the modern period, subjects some commonly accepted themes to rigorous investigation, and draws out new conclusions on the mobility, strategies, and experiences of parents of illegitimate children.