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Messages - Elswick

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1
Family History Beginners Board / Re: I need to pick your brains!
« on: Sunday 22 June 25 13:48 BST (UK)  »
Right, here's where I'm up to at the moment.  The following organisations were definitely involved in the placement of children (adoption) in the 1940's

Barnados

Shrewsbury Diocesan Children's Rescue Society

Salvation Army

The Salvation Army is an interesting one as I was categorically told ten years ago by both their UK H/Q and the person in charge of their Archives Centre that their organisation was never involved in adoption.  Well their website says otherwise, over the years around 850 children were placed for adoptions through this organisation, ceasing in 1953 due to a change in the law.

If any of you know of any other organisations then pop them up here!

Thanks for the interest and help shown by you all.

2
Family History Beginners Board / Re: I need to pick your brains!
« on: Saturday 21 June 25 19:32 BST (UK)  »
I like that fiddlerslass, great find, very much appreciated!!

3
Family History Beginners Board / Re: I need to pick your brains!
« on: Friday 20 June 25 21:17 BST (UK)  »
Excellent find hanes teulu!  It mentions "societies with a licence", they are what we now call adoption agencies (or similar), it's those societies I'm trying to identify in the Shropshire area, 1949 or thereabouts.

4
Family History Beginners Board / Re: I need to pick your brains!
« on: Friday 20 June 25 21:02 BST (UK)  »
Indseed it was!

Regarding your confusion, I thought my original post was fairly clear.

"I'm trying to identify organisations/institutions involved with adoption in the 1940's in Shropshire, England.  Nowadays we'd call them adoption agencies, back then they went by many names".

I am not looking for mother and baby homes, orphanages, work houses or anything similar and I'm definitely not looking for adoption records.  I'm looking for the many organisations that existed that organised adoptions. 

I know this subject inside out, firstly I was born in a mother and baby home, secondly I was  adopted and lastly I've been through the process of obtaining my adoption records. My problem is in spite of my knowledge on the subject I only know about the agency that dealt with my adoption, now I need to learn about similar organisations in a different part of the country, hence my post.

Google Salvation Army plus my username and see what you find!

5
Family History Beginners Board / Re: I need to pick your brains!
« on: Friday 20 June 25 20:40 BST (UK)  »
fiddlerslass: An interesting link, I'll investigate it further but for the moment let me make it blatantly clear to everyone that I am not looking for any adoption records.

6
Family History Beginners Board / Re: I need to pick your brains!
« on: Friday 20 June 25 20:30 BST (UK)  »
Yes, private adoptions, but they were legal and legally formalised, no different to a more conventional adoption but without the middle man (adoption agency).

7
Family History Beginners Board / Re: I need to pick your brains!
« on: Friday 20 June 25 20:16 BST (UK)  »
I'm well aware of the history, I am the product of exactly what you've just described but having said that since the Adoption Act of 1925 there's no such thing as an illegal adoption (in theory).  All adoptions since then were conducted as per the law, are legal, went through the courts and were originally on record.  Whether those records still exist is another subject entirely.

"The Catholic Church, Church of England and the Salvation Army ran, “mother and baby homes” and UK adoption agencies".   

Mother and Baby Homes, yes, no argument with that detail at all. Adoption agencies though, well, this is a very grey area. All those institutions you mentioned were very closely connected for sure, and the agencies involved often had a religious ethos, and often they had the blessing of the church/local diocese, but to say the church ran such agencies is stretching the truth, and often it's simply wrong.

8
Family History Beginners Board / Re: I need to pick your brains!
« on: Friday 20 June 25 19:48 BST (UK)  »
Barnados. e-mailed them a couple of hours ago.  Salvation Army, their main archives are very close to me and I've had dealings with them in the past.  They ran numerous mother and baby homes for sure, I was born in one myself, but they weren't involved in adoption, that was always outside concerns.  The same applies to most mother and baby homes, they were a place for the mothers to have their child, they weren't adoption agencies though they usually had close working relationships with such organisations.Waifs and Strays, no idea, I'll look into that, and finally, the Catholic Church........

Wish me luck on that one!!

9
Family History Beginners Board / Re: I need to pick your brains!
« on: Friday 20 June 25 17:14 BST (UK)  »
KGarrad: Tried it I'm afraid, very informative but not helpful as it deals with many different types of homes but barely mentions adoption at all, or the institutions involved in adoption.

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