Baby-farming
Encyclopedia
Baby farming was a term used in late-Victorian Era
Britain
(and, less commonly, in Australia
and the United States
) to mean the taking in of an infant
or child for payment; if the infant was young, this usually included wet-nursing
(breast-feeding by a woman not the mother). Some baby farmers "adopted" children for lump-sum payments, while others cared for infants for periodic payments. Though baby farmers were paid in the understanding that care would be provided, the term "baby farmer" was used as an insult, and improper treatment was usually implied. Illegitimacy and its attendant stigma
were usually the impetus for a mother's decision to put her children "out to nurse" with a baby farmer, but baby farming also encompassed foster care
and adoption
in the period before they were regulated by British law.
Richer women would also put their babies out to be cared for in the homes of villagers. Claire Tomalin
gives a detailed account of this in her biography of Jane Austen
, who was fostered in this manner, as were all her siblings, from a few months old until they were toddlers. Tomalin emphasises the emotional distance this created.
Particularly in the case of lump-sum adoptions, it was more profitable for the baby farmer if the infant or child she adopted died, since the small payment could not cover the care of the child for long. Some baby farmers adopted numerous children and then neglected them or murdered them outright (see infanticide
). Several were tried for murder, manslaughter, or criminal neglect and were hanged. Margaret Waters
(executed 1870) and Amelia Dyer
(executed 1896) were two infamous British baby farmers, as were Amelia Sach and Annie Walters
(executed 1903). The last baby farmer to be executed in Britain was Rhoda Willis
, who was hanged in Wales
in 1907. The only woman to be executed in New Zealand, Minnie Dean
, was a baby farmer.
Spurred by a series of articles that appeared in the British Medical Journal
in 1867, Parliament
began to regulate baby farming in 1872 with the passage of the Infant Life Protection Act. A series of acts passed over the next seventy years, including the Children Act 1908
and the 1939 Adoption of Children (Regulation) Act, gradually placed adoption and foster care under the protection and regulation of the state.
The term has been used to describe the sale of eggs for use in assisted conception, particularly in vitro fertilization.
See Coram Boy, a children's novel by Jamila Gavin. It was published in 2000 and it won Gavin a Whitbread Children's Book Award.
The story sheds light on the corruption and child cruelty that flourished in Foundling Hospitals in large cities, because unscrupulous people took advantage of the situation of women with illegitimate children by promising desperate mothers to take their unwanted children to care facilities, for a fee.
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
Britain
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
(and, less commonly, in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
) to mean the taking in of an infant
Infant
A newborn or baby is the very young offspring of a human or other mammal. A newborn is an infant who is within hours, days, or up to a few weeks from birth. In medical contexts, newborn or neonate refers to an infant in the first 28 days after birth...
or child for payment; if the infant was young, this usually included wet-nursing
Wet nurse
A wet nurse is a woman who is used to breast feed and care for another's child. Wet nurses are used when the mother is unable or chooses not to nurse the child herself. Wet-nursed children may be known as "milk-siblings", and in some cultures the families are linked by a special relationship of...
(breast-feeding by a woman not the mother). Some baby farmers "adopted" children for lump-sum payments, while others cared for infants for periodic payments. Though baby farmers were paid in the understanding that care would be provided, the term "baby farmer" was used as an insult, and improper treatment was usually implied. Illegitimacy and its attendant stigma
Social stigma
Social stigma is the severe disapproval of or discontent with a person on the grounds of characteristics that distinguish them from other members of a society.Almost all stigma is based on a person differing from social or cultural norms...
were usually the impetus for a mother's decision to put her children "out to nurse" with a baby farmer, but baby farming also encompassed foster care
Foster care
Foster care is the term used for a system in which a minor who has been made a ward is placed in the private home of a state certified caregiver referred to as a "foster parent"....
and adoption
Adoption
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting for another and, in so doing, permanently transfers all rights and responsibilities from the original parent or parents...
in the period before they were regulated by British law.
Richer women would also put their babies out to be cared for in the homes of villagers. Claire Tomalin
Claire Tomalin
Claire Tomalin is an English biographer and journalist. She was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge.She was literary editor of the New Statesman and of the Sunday Times, and has written several noted biographies...
gives a detailed account of this in her biography of Jane Austen
Jane Austen
Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...
, who was fostered in this manner, as were all her siblings, from a few months old until they were toddlers. Tomalin emphasises the emotional distance this created.
Particularly in the case of lump-sum adoptions, it was more profitable for the baby farmer if the infant or child she adopted died, since the small payment could not cover the care of the child for long. Some baby farmers adopted numerous children and then neglected them or murdered them outright (see infanticide
Infanticide
Infanticide or infant homicide is the killing of a human infant. Neonaticide, a killing within 24 hours of a baby's birth, is most commonly done by the mother.In many past societies, certain forms of infanticide were considered permissible...
). Several were tried for murder, manslaughter, or criminal neglect and were hanged. Margaret Waters
Margaret Waters
Margaret Waters was an English murderess hanged by executioner William Calcraft on October 11, 1870 at Horsemonger Lane Gaol in London....
(executed 1870) and Amelia Dyer
Amelia Dyer
Amelia Elizabeth Dyer née Hobley was the most prolific baby farm murderer of Victorian England. She was tried and hanged for one murder, but there is little doubt she was responsible for many more similar deaths—possibly 400 or more—over a period of perhaps twenty years.-Background:Unlike many of...
(executed 1896) were two infamous British baby farmers, as were Amelia Sach and Annie Walters
Amelia Sach and Annie Walters
Amelia Sach and Annie Walters were two British serial killers better known as the Finchley baby farmers.-Crimes:...
(executed 1903). The last baby farmer to be executed in Britain was Rhoda Willis
Rhoda Willis
Rhoda Willis was a baby farmer convicted of murder.She was born in Sunderland in 1867.Willis was executed by hanging at Cardiff prison on August 14 1907, her 40th birthday. She was the only woman to be hanged in Wales in the 20th century and the last baby farmer to be executed....
, who was hanged in Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
in 1907. The only woman to be executed in New Zealand, Minnie Dean
Minnie Dean
Williamina "Minnie" Dean was a New Zealander who was found guilty of infanticide and hanged. She was the only woman to receive the death penalty in New Zealand....
, was a baby farmer.
Spurred by a series of articles that appeared in the British Medical Journal
British Medical Journal
BMJ is a partially open-access peer-reviewed medical journal. Originally called the British Medical Journal, the title was officially shortened to BMJ in 1988. The journal is published by the BMJ Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Medical Association...
in 1867, Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
began to regulate baby farming in 1872 with the passage of the Infant Life Protection Act. A series of acts passed over the next seventy years, including the Children Act 1908
Children Act 1908
The 1908 Children's Act, also known as Children and Young Persons Act, part of the Children's Charter was a piece of government legislation passed by the Liberal government, as part of the British Liberal Party's liberal reforms package...
and the 1939 Adoption of Children (Regulation) Act, gradually placed adoption and foster care under the protection and regulation of the state.
The term has been used to describe the sale of eggs for use in assisted conception, particularly in vitro fertilization.
Baby farming in works of fiction or popular culture
- The titular character in Charles Dickens' Oliver TwistOliver TwistOliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress is the second novel by English author Charles Dickens, published by Richard Bentley in 1838. The story is about an orphan Oliver Twist, who endures a miserable existence in a workhouse and then is placed with an undertaker. He escapes and travels to...
spends his first years in a "baby farm." - The eponymous heroine puts her newborn "out to nurse" with a baby farmer in George MooreGeorge Moore (novelist)George Augustus Moore was an Irish novelist, short-story writer, poet, art critic, memoirist and dramatist. Moore came from a Roman Catholic landed family who lived at Moore Hall in Carra, County Mayo. He originally wanted to be a painter, and studied art in Paris during the 1870s...
's Esther WatersEsther WatersEsther Waters is a novel by George Moore first published in 1894.-Introduction:Set in England from the early 1870s onward, the novel is about a young, pious woman from a poor working class family who, while working as a kitchen maid, is seduced by another employee, becomes pregnant, is deserted by...
(18941894 in literatureThe year 1894 in literature involved some significant new books.-Events:*Robert Frost sells his first poem, "My Butterfly", to The New York Independent for fifteen dollars.*Hermann Hesse begins his apprenticeship at a factory in Calw....
). - The main character in PerfumePerfume (book)Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is a 1985 literary historical cross-genre novel by German writer Patrick Süskind. The novel explores the sense of smell and its relationship with the emotional meaning that scents may carry...
, Jean-Baptiste GrenouilleJean-Baptiste GrenouilleJean-Baptiste Grenouille is the protagonist from Patrick Süskind's novel Perfume, published in 1985. Grenouille is born with an extreme form of hyperosmia , which eventually leads to him becoming a serial killer....
, was orphaned at birth and brought up by baby farmers. (It was actually an orphanage and his mother had been hanged shortly after his birth) - The character of Mrs. Sucksby in Sarah WatersSarah WatersSarah Waters is a British novelist. She is best known for her novels set in Victorian society, such as Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith.-Childhood:Sarah Waters was born in Neyland, Pembrokeshire, Wales in 1966....
's novel FingersmithFingersmith (novel)Fingersmith is a 2002 Victorian-inspired crime fiction novel by Sarah Waters.-Part one:Sue Trinder, an orphan raised in 'a Fagin-like den of thieves' by her adoptive mother, Mrs. Sucksby, is sent to help Richard 'Gentleman' Rivers seduce a wealthy heiress. Posing as a maid, Sue is to gain the trust...
is a baby farmer. - The Gilbert and SullivanGilbert and SullivanGilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
operettaOperettaOperetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
H.M.S. PinaforeH.M.S. PinaforeH.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the Opera Comique in London, England, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, which was the second-longest run of any musical...
was a satireSatireSatire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
that used baby farming to poke fun at class hierarchy and the Royal NavyRoyal NavyThe Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
. - The book Mama's Babies by Gary CrewGary Crew-Life:Gary Crew was born in Brisbane, Queensland on 23 September 1947. An illness during childhood kept him home from school but enabled him to develop an interest in reading adventure stories....
is the story of a child of a baby farmer in the 1890s. - The silent filmSilent filmA silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
Sparrows (1926) with Mary PickfordMary PickfordMary Pickford was a Canadian-born motion picture actress, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
was set in a baby farm in the southern swamps. - In The Fire Thief trilogy of novels, a baby farm is prominent.
- Australian musical The HatpinThe HatpinThe Hatpin is a musical theatre production inspired by the true story of Amber Murray who in 1892 gave up her son to the Makin family in Sydney, Australia. Written and developed in 2006–2007, by James Millar and Peter Rutherford , The Hatpin opened at the Seymour Centre in Sydney on 27 February...
features a mother's experience with a baby farmers and was inspired by the true story of Amber Murray and the Makin familyJohn and Sarah MakinJohn Makin and Sarah Jane Makin were Australian baby farmers who were convicted in New South Wales of the murder of infant Horace Murray. Both were tried and found guilty in March 1893 and sentenced to death. John was hanged on 15 August 1893, but Sarah's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment...
.
See Coram Boy, a children's novel by Jamila Gavin. It was published in 2000 and it won Gavin a Whitbread Children's Book Award.
The story sheds light on the corruption and child cruelty that flourished in Foundling Hospitals in large cities, because unscrupulous people took advantage of the situation of women with illegitimate children by promising desperate mothers to take their unwanted children to care facilities, for a fee.