Adoption post-WW1

[John’s]

Hello All

I’m meandering through various WW1 topics and wondered about children born while the fathers were away at war

Assuming a number of them were adopted, what was the procedure before 1926 (Scotland, when I understand the process became rather more formalised, but may have applied across the UK)

Were the children adopted by friends and family, or was there a ‘market’ (for want of a better word) for anonymous adoptions?

And finally, presumably at some point, birth certificates were required. I wonder how this was dealt with, and how this may have affected ancestry searches?

Just vague thoughts - any informed thoughts or knowledge hugely appreciated

Thanks

John

[KGarrad]

The relevant pieces of legislation are:
The Adoption of Children (Scotland) Act 1930, and
The Adoption of Children Act 1926 (applicable to England and Wales).

See https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=758640.0 from 2017.

[RJ_Paton]

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

[John’s]

Thank you both very much for your quick and very useful replies

I should have searched the site first but thank you for the links - lots of reading

Also thank you for the additional information - some very interesting points to look into further

Thanks

John