Baptisms - attendance of both parents?

[ElizabethHerts]

A baptism c. 1860

When a child was baptised, did the vicar or whoever perform the ceremony check the details given about the parents?

Did both parents have to attend the baptism?
If a father was in the army or navy I have always assumed that a baptism could take place without his attending.

We have the scenario of a child being baptised and the mother stating that the father was in the navy. The father has not been found on the census or marriage record.

[Phoenix]

Whether they actually attended or not, and as a religious ceremony, I would have thought that the godparents were more important, the vicar would certainly be interested in finding out who the father was.
I'm not very good about the rules under the New Poor Law, but settlement would depend on the father's place of settlement, and I imagine that even with the Poor Law Unions, the vicar was at the front line to ensure that there were no unnecessary mouths to fill.

[Phoenix]

Was the baptism somewhere like Portsmouth? There would have been plenty of irregular unions there, and very easy to pretend you were married, until they started to check up.

[Merry]

I have one baptism on my tree where both parents were dead. There is no mention of this in the register and I have no idea who brought up the child or took them to be baptised.

I would have thought there might be any baptisms where the father did not attend because of long working hours.

I would think it's pot luck whether the vicar could care less (or otherwise) about the information he took from the 'parents'. Look at those baptisms of dozens or even hundreds of babies on one day in some parishes - I would think in some cases it might be 'anything goes'!

[ElizabethHerts]

The baptism was at New Swindon.

This is part of some group research. I have been wondering whether the father named on the baptism actually existed. He was said to be a Captain in the Merchant Navy but I can't find a record of him. Also he had the same name as the mother's father, with a middle named thrown in. So the mother still had the same surname as she was born with.

[ElizabethHerts]

I am of the opinion that the mother was attempting to hide illegitimacy but someone said surely the vicar or however checked the facts, and like you, Merry, I doubt that sometimes they could really be bothered.

[Olde Crone]

I replied to this but my reply has vanished!

I think info given at baptism is only slightly more reliable than info given at birth registration. In either case, no one would check it. The registrar held a fine over your head for wilfully lying, the Vicar held eternal damnation over you.

OC

[Merry]

He was said to be a Captain in the Merchant Navy

Living in Swindon? lol!!

[Phoenix]

When best mate's great aunt registered the birth of her child (she subsequently married as a spinster) she named the father with identical details to those of her brother :eek::eek::eek:
We assume she had already given her own surname and then had to invent a father on the spot.
Who you lie to depends on who knows you. GGGgranny gave true father's name to registrar, when she registered little Edmund's birth. Vicar knew perfectly well Louisa wasn't married, so Edmund grew up as a Skillings, not an Edwards.
New Swindon sounds like a growing place, where you could say what you liked, with little fear of being found out.


Did the child live to get married themselves? Or does anyone have the mother's death certificate?

[ElizabethHerts]

Did the child live to get married themselves? Or does anyone have the mother's death certificate?

As far as we can see the mother never married. The daughter in question seems to have married under a variant first name. Her sister, born later, married once but cohabited after a divorce. We are awaiting the PDF of the birth registration for her.

[Phoenix]

Sometimes a child will name a father by a correct first name on a marriage certificate.

I initially rejected a death certificate as incorrect as Sarah Moore's late husband was given as William, when she had been married to James. I didn't realise then that she had subsequently lived with the widower of her sister as his common law wife until he died.

[Lindsay]

I should think a lot depended on the vicar. I have a baptism for a child with no father's name, though his mother was married and the child was given the husband's surname. The vicar added a disapproving note to say that the mother had only married the previous week.

[Kit]

My Dad's cousin married a man with the same surname as her own.

No relation to each other as far as they know.

[merleyone]

Post 1 above poses the question of whether both parents had to attend a baptism. I had never thought of that but when I was searching for a baptism recently came across one for the relevant child in 1906 at a small Suffolk church near Bury St Edmunds. At first sight all seemed normal with both parents correctly named and father's profession shown as Engineer's Clerk but their abode was shown as Birmingham and the day of the baptism was a Wednesday, which caused doubt to arise that neither of them had been present. When I realised that the child's birth was recorded incorrectly, three days adrift, with no known affiliation with Suffolk by the parents I was sceptical. When I noticed the first baptism on the page was of a boy born to a single woman whose abode was recorded as Bishops Stortford that also seemed odd but a small bracketed comment made below the boy's details revealed him to be 'an orphan born at Bishops Stortford Workhouse', which was at least proof absolute that his mother could not have been present.

merleyone

[garstonite]

This has raised a question in my mind about my mother ????
I was 16 when my youngest brother was baptised - and my mum stayed in the house to do all the food for the party afterwards - so she never attended her sons Baptism , - which makes me wonder if she attended any of her 5 sons Baptisms ???..( no daughters - just 5 boys )now I have issues in my head ?...is this very unusual ?????

[Kit]

I've seen a baptism where the woman was actually married at the time but was baptised in her maiden name. Parents names were correct although I can't remember if the abode was. I have no idea if the parents were present, or even alive as I can't remember who it was now.

[Merry]

I presume the Book of Common Prayer 1662 would have been used for the C of E baptism service in England/Wales for a long time. Here's a link to the baptism service:

http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1662/Orig_manuscript/baptism.htm

The parents barely get a mention, whilst it's all about the godparents (always surprised the C of E doesn't seem to care who they were after the event!). It does say "the parents" will tell the curate they have a child to baptise the day before or on the Sunday before the morning service (can't see that being acceptable now - much booking long in advance!). After that the parents presumably come under the collective, "the people (with the children)".

[ElizabethHerts]

Merry, thanks for the link. I found it very interesting, and also the part about private baptism and being received into the church.