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Archiver > SOG-UK > 2003-05 > 1053383435


From: "La Greenall" <>
Subject: RE: [SoG] Nurse Child
Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 23:32:54 +0100
In-Reply-To: <000201c326cf$f43c8ac0$7d12bd50@oemcomputer>


Nursechildren were a common phemomenon around here, c.15 miles north of
London and possibly in a ring around the capital, where the children of
those who could pay were 'nursed out' or 'farmed' out to rural parishes for
the first few years of their life, being taken in probably by poor families
who needed the extra money. Often these nurse children got only very cursory
TLC (!) which is probably why they figure so highly in burial registers.

My first encounter with them was in the book 'The Parish Register and
Tithing Book of Thomas Hassall of Amwell' [near Ware, HRT], Herts Record Soc
1989 ISBN 0951072846, the registers cover 1599-1657, and the study covers
this subject as a lot of his burials were of nurse children. I have since
studied the registers of Loughton, ESS and found a significant number of
such burials there, which, after reaching an all-time high in the mid-18th
century, suddenly drop off to zero - while the number of "foundling" burials
quickly leapt from almost none into correspondingly high figures - a scandal
being covered up?

Lawrence

From the above book, page x: "London provided Amwell mothers with a
ceaseless flow of nurse-children... Some notion of their importance in the
parish community may be gauged from the fact that over a 35-year period
almost one burial in ten in Amwell was of a nurse-child... It is not known
how much was paid to the host families, but given that it was customary to
charge double burial fees for nurse-children, the London parishes and
parents would surely not have paid less, and probably much more, than the 1s
4d a week that was paid in 1611 to the foster parents of parish bastards.
Caring for London nurse-children was therefore a widespread and economically
important 'cottage' industry."

> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Binns [mailto:]
> Sent: 18 May 2003 20:00
> To:
> Subject: [SoG] Nurse Child
>
>
> Hello listers,
> In the 1881 Census for the area around Moulton, near Northwich,
> Cheshire, several children with the same or different surname to
> the 'head are recorded as 'nurse child'.
> I have not come across this description before and would be
> interested to hear if somebody has a reliable definition.
> Also is this a regional expression since I have not seen it
> before in Yorkshire or Staffordshire?
> Regards, David Binns, Tyneside
>
>
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