Were the children adopted by friends and family, or was there a ‘market’ (for want of a better word) for anonymous adoptions?
John
It is generally believed that the greater number of pre legislation adoptions were amongst the greater family group although I don't believe that there was any formal study done of this to substantiate or disprove this claim.
Several Charity group and church groups also existed and kept their own records of the transactions. Private adoptions also still existed and in some cases the actual sale of children happened.
It was partially to regulate these disparate methods that the Adoption of Childrens Act was brought into existance with one of its aims being to provide better protection for the child concerned than had previously been the case. (The Scottish Act was basically a carbon copy of the Act for England & Wales with the appropriate geography changed) .
One side effect of the legislation was the power given to "the Authorities" to decide if the parent (generally the mother) was a fit person to have a child and was used for many years to separate single mothers from their babies