Help needed where to loo

[alpinecottage]

He must have been a man of considerable means to have afforded to pay out £1000 back then?

There's a family of Jowett's in Mellor Derbyshire in 1891 who are cotton manufacturers.

Hmmm?

There is a Potts family with a daughter Clara who is a mill worker in Mellor Derbyshire in 1891, so it looks like you've identified the scoundrel's family!

[Wattsy]

Hi

Yes, the Jowett family are the local mill owners and there would appear to be 3 sons who could be the likely father. There is a James, William and Charles, all of which seem to be around the right dob.  But which one?

Its just is so annoying that the newspapers give the name in full of the lady concerned but do not name of the father or "seducer".

Wattsy

[stanmapstone]

If you already have the birth cert and it doesn't mention a father,then I doubt you'll ever find who he was. Clara Potts obviously didn't want anyone to know.

The Registration Act of 1874 states:
"The putative father of an illegitimate child cannot be required as father to give information respecting the birth. The name, surname and occupation of the putative father of an illegitimate child must not be entered except at the joint request of the father and mother; in which case both the father and mother must sign the entry as informants" The Act came into force on 1st January 1875.

Stan

[avm228]

Of the Jowett brothers I would think Charles an unlikely candidate as he had married in 1890, so before the conception of Hessie whose birth was registered in Sep qtr 1892. As a local girl Clara surely would not have been duped into thinking Charles would marry her, then?

[carol8353]

My money is on William 

[sallyyorks]

The description "seducer" may be putting it mildly i'm afraid 

This is part of what the campaigner Richard Oastler had to say about the condition of mill  workers  in the North of England .

1832 Parliamentary Papers
 ".......... I have refrained from exposing the worst parts of the system (the mills in the North of England) , for they are so gross that I dare not publish them. The demoralising effects of the system are as bad, I know it, as the demoralising effects of slavery in the West Indies. I know that there are instances and scenes of the grossest prostitution among the poor creatures who are the victims of the system, and in some cases are the objects of the cruelty and rapacity and sensuality of their master. These things I never dared to publish............."

link to ful text
http://www.historyhome.co.uk/peel/factmine/oastler.htm

[Wattsy]

My money is also on William - however Clara was not the daughter of a poor family. Father was a grocer,also granary owner and also owned at that time Dove Bank Mill.  I believe that there was probably a marriage proposal between the families and then a change of mind.

But not knowing which of the Jowett boys is annoying.