Lyncroft House
Having found this thread I thought it would be helpful to reply to some of the points raised by some recent (as well as a few not so recent) posts. Find attached a very brief history of our Birmingham homes. I originally put this together for a different thread on this forum:
https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/for...dywood-road-birmingham-b16.31615/#post-795807
Lyncroft House, Lichfield later became the Hedgehog pub, and
Lyncroft House, Handsworth Wood was situated at 99-101 (from around 1972, 97-101) Ladywood Road.
‘…do you think she would know she was adopted?’
The attitude of adoptive parents of course made a difference to if a child found out in childhood, but I never fail to be surprised at how good families can be at keeping secrets. Some years ago, I was contacted by a lady who had just discovered, within the past few days that is, that she had been adopted. This wasn’t especially unusual as I get this type of enquiry all the time, except this woman was ninety-two years of age and she had found out from her dying aunt, aged ninety-six, who had kept this secret across nine decades.
‘…apart from having to have their baby's adopted’
It’s a common misconception that an unmarried woman giving birth in a maternity home automatically had to give their child up for adoption. Over the years I have compiled studies of women leaving our various homes. I can only comment on Salvation Army homes, but in the case of
Lyncroft House I have produced three of these studies, and I have calculated the percentage of women who left the home with their baby in each of the three years.
1941 55%
1957 54%
1970 62%
These are very consistent figures, but those for other homes, or for other years, can of course vary considerably.
‘I have often wondered why she made the trip from Barnet to Lichfield to give birth to me. ‘
It’s rarely possible to work out from the surviving records why an individual woman (or her parents) chose a particular home, but referring to the same three summaries as above I find that:
1941 One woman travelled from Gloucester and another from Sheffield
1957 The longest journey was from Cardigan in West Wales
1970 Two women are listed as having come from London
‘…she wasn’t allowed to register his birth herself, so I doubt her name is on the birth certificate’
I must admit I’ve not come across this before, but even if the mother is not named as informant, her name will of course be on the certificate as the child’s mother.
‘I do know that they asked girls to name the father in confidence…’.
There was certainly a question on the child’s form for the name and address of the putative father, but the answer given could be ‘not known’ or ‘would not say’ – as there was no requirement for a woman to give this information.
Putative Fathers
The putative father in this context is a man whose legal relationship to the child has not been established, but who is alleged to be the father to a child born to a woman to whom he is not married at the time of the child's birth.
Information regarding putative fathers found in the girls' statement books (discharge records) and similar records is treated as third-party information. This means that we will only release personally-identifying information if at least one of the following conditions applies:
- 84 years had passed from date of case
- Proven to be deceased/or assumed to be if would be aged 100+
- If our records indicate that an affiliation order had been granted, as this would have been decided in a court of law
- With permission of the man concerned, usually in a letter deposited around the time of birth
Any general, non-personally-identifying information will be given if it is available, such as home town/country, occupation, etc.
If the child was adopted, then I can provide any information we may have to an ASA (see below) along with the rest of the information in a record, although I usually give the following ‘health warning’ for such information.
In most cases in our records there was no corroboration as to the putative father’s identity, and usually the man named would not even have known that his details were being given to us. Also, it is apparent that the identification of the putative fathers in these records is often unreliable. There are even examples of a woman giving the details of different men to us at different times.
For most of our former maternity homes (including
Lyncroft) few original records survive and our main resource for answering this type of enquiry is a series of records known as the Girls' Statement Books. These are divided into separate series for ‘London’ and ‘Country’ (the rest of the UK). These were compiled from returns sent in from every home at the end of each month to our headquarters, and are discharge records, one page for each of the women who left the home that month (the girl’s statement), with an additional form stuck to it if a baby had been born (the infant’s statement).
Although these records start in the 1880s and continue right up to the closure of our last maternity home in 1980, there is one known major gap. In the ‘Country’ series, and therefore affecting
Lyncroft, we have no
discharge entries from March 1942 and March 1948.
Even though the information is limited, most people find it of interest, and there is sometimes information such as the woman’s home address, the adoption society responsible for the adoption or, as mentioned above, the putative father.
‘…this is a very delicate subject and must not be taken lightly.’
I agree, as a ‘new’ family may not have known of the adopted person’s existence. DIY attempts at contact can be damaging to all concerned.
‘How many years do you have to wait for the info to be available albeit too late by then.’
Records regarding adoptions are covered by an exemption under the Data Protection Act, so information cannot be requested using a Subject Access Request. However, there is an alternative route.
If someone contacts me regarding their adoption, or that of a birth relative, I will provide a list of suitable ID. Once I have this I will check our archive to see if there are any surviving records. If we do have anything, then I will have to refer you to an Adoption Support Agency (ASA). They will also ask you to provide proof of your identity, and they will be able to apply to me for transcripts of the records we hold. This is a legal requirement.
Your local authority's social services department (or, in Northern Ireland, your health and social care trust) will be able to direct you to a suitable ASA in your area, or they may even provide the service themselves.
About Adoption Support Agencies
Adoption support agencies provide assistance to adopted children and adults, such as counselling and finding out the details of their adoption. They also help adopted children and adults and their relatives if they want to know more about, or want to trace, their birth relatives.
If you have any queries of a general nature which you think others might find of interest please reply to this post. If you have not been in contact with me before and would like to ask about your specific circumstances, please search for:
“The Salvation Army International Heritage Centre”, go to ‘contact us’ and you will find our e-mail address. Information sent to this address is seen only by myself and the archive team, and so is completely confidential.
Kevin
Major Kevin Pooley
Social Historian
The Salvation Army International Heritage Centre
