Infant survival chances, unmarried motherhood and domestic arrangements in rural Scotland, 1845-1945

Local Population Studies

Volumn , Issue 60, 1998, Pages 34-46

  Blaikie, Andrew ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; CHILD CARE; FAMILY; HISTORY; HUMAN; ILLEGITIMACY; INFANT; INFANT MORTALITY; MOTHER; NEWBORN; PRESCHOOL CHILD; RURAL POPULATION; SINGLE PARENT; SURVIVAL RATE; UNITED KINGDOM; VITAL STATISTICS;

CHILD CARE; CHILD, PRESCHOOL; FAMILY; GREAT BRITAIN; HISTORY, 19TH CENTURY; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HUMANS; ILLEGITIMACY; INFANT; INFANT MORTALITY; INFANT, NEWBORN; MOTHERS; RURAL POPULATION; SINGLE PARENT; SURVIVAL RATE; VITAL STATISTICS;

EID: 0032013573     PISSN: 01432974     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (52)

1. No continuous runs of birth (as distinct from baptism) and death records exist for Scottish parishes prior to the advent of Civil Registration in 1855.
2. In Rothiemay, 106 infants died within 12 months of birth between 1855 and 1900. Of these, 37 (35 per cent) were illegitimate, whilst in the Rothiemay General Register of Poor (1845-1900), 185 children under 9 years are mentioned by name, 62 (33.5 per cent) being known bastards.
3. A. Blaikie, Illegitimacy, sex, and society: Northeast Scotland, 1750-1900 (Oxford, 1993), chapters 5 and 6.
4. See C. H. Lee, 'Regional infant mortality in Britain, 1861-1971: patterns and hypotheses', Population Studies, 45 (1991), 55-65; R. A. Cage, 'Infant mortality rates and housing: twentieth century Glasgow', Scottish Economic and Social History, 14 (1994), 77-92; D. Kemmer, 'Infant mortality in early twentieth century Scotland using the civil registers: Aberdeen and Dundee compared', Scottish Economic and Social History, 17 (1997), 1-19. Eilidh Garrett and Alice Reid of the Cambridge Group are researching age-specific patterns in textile towns, including Dundee, and Elspeth Graham (St Andrews) is investigating smallpox in Fife, 1750-1830, Apart from Rory Paddock's unpublished Ph.D. thesis, 'Aspects of illegitimacy in Victorian Dumfriesshire' (University of Edinburgh, 1990), relevant demographic research on southwest Scotland is singularly lacking.
5. See C. H. Lee, 'Regional infant mortality in Britain, 1861-1971: patterns and hypotheses', Population Studies, 45 (1991), 55-65; R. A. Cage, 'Infant mortality rates and housing: twentieth century Glasgow', Scottish Economic and Social History, 14 (1994), 77-92; D. Kemmer, 'Infant mortality in early twentieth century Scotland using the civil registers: Aberdeen and Dundee compared', Scottish Economic and Social History, 17 (1997), 1-19. Eilidh Garrett and Alice Reid of the Cambridge Group are researching age-specific patterns in textile towns, including Dundee, and Elspeth Graham (St Andrews) is investigating smallpox in Fife, 1750-1830, Apart from Rory Paddock's unpublished Ph.D. thesis, 'Aspects of illegitimacy in Victorian Dumfriesshire' (University of Edinburgh, 1990), relevant demographic research on southwest Scotland is singularly lacking.
6. See C. H. Lee, 'Regional infant mortality in Britain, 1861-1971: patterns and hypotheses', Population Studies, 45 (1991), 55-65; R. A. Cage, 'Infant mortality rates and housing: twentieth century Glasgow', Scottish Economic and Social History, 14 (1994), 77-92; D. Kemmer, 'Infant mortality in early twentieth century Scotland using the civil registers: Aberdeen and Dundee compared', Scottish Economic and Social History, 17 (1997), 1-19. Eilidh Garrett and Alice Reid of the Cambridge Group are researching age-specific patterns in textile towns, including Dundee, and Elspeth Graham (St Andrews) is investigating smallpox in Fife, 1750-1830, Apart from Rory Paddock's unpublished Ph.D. thesis, 'Aspects of illegitimacy in Victorian Dumfriesshire' (University of Edinburgh, 1990), relevant demographic research on southwest Scotland is singularly lacking.
7. The Scottish Health Department, Infant mortality in Scotland: the report of a sub-committee of the Scientific Advisory Committee (Edinburgh, 1943).
8. R. I. Woods, P. A. Watterson and J. H. Woodward, 'The causes of rapid infant mortality decline in England and Wales, 1861-1921', Population Studies, 42 (1988), 343-66 and 43 (1989), 113-32. Recent research suggests that density per room was the crucial component in Glasgow (Cage, 'Infant mortality rates').
9. MOH Report, Aberdeen, 1907, (1908), 55 (Table C), 59.
10. MOH Report, Aberdeen, 1907, (1908), 60.
11. The census enumerators' books allow, at least, for the calculation of numbers of persons per windowed room.
12. R. Mitchison, British population change since 1860, (London, 1977), 49.
13. W. Flinn et al, Scottish population history, (Cambridge, 1977), 418.
14. Mitchison, British population change, 49.
15. P. Laslett, 'Introduction', in P. Laslett, K. Oosterveen and R. M. Smith eds, Bastardy and its comparative history, (London, 1980), 1-68 (p. 41).
16. Laslett, 'Introduction', 41-47.
17. M.S. Teitelbaum, The British fertility decline: demographic transition in the crucible of the industrial revolution, (Princeton, 1984), 149; Table 6.10b (p. 152).
18. Flinn et al, Scottish population history, 353.
19. Lee, 'Regional infant mortality', Table 1, 57. English counties, Welsh and Scottish regions.
20. Westmorland achieved 88 in 1881, and Devon managed 99 in 1891, but in all other years both recorded higher rates.
21. Lee, 'Regional infant mortality', 58.
22. Although low compared to its hinterland, the level of illegitimacy in Aberdeen has long been higher than other Scottish towns. In the later 1850s its rate stood at 15.2 per cent, some 4.8 per cent higher than the next highest city, Dundee. After the 1850s illegitimacy maintained its relatively high level, falling below 10 per cent for the first time in 1883 and ranging between 8 and 12 per cent, with occasional exceptions, until the 1930s. These data from Registrar General for Scotland's Detailed Annual Reports.
23. The constructs of rural and urban are possibly deceptive in that a number of micro-level studies have shown that within country parishes bastardy appears to have been lower in the purely rural districts than in the more densely populated village streets (see Blaikie, Illegitimacy, 130-33, on sharp distinctions in Mamoch (Banffshire); J. Robin, 'Illegitimacy in Colyton, 1851-1881', Continuity and Change, 2 (1987), 307-42 (p. 335); Paddock, 'Illegitimacy in Victorian Dumfriesshire', 127-29; J. M. Phayer, 'Subcommunal bastardy and rural religion: micro and macro aspects of the debate on the sexual revolution', Journal of Sex Research, 17 (1981), 74-95). If it can be demonstrated that infant mortality is also (as we would expect) concentrated in the more densely populated parts of rural parishes, then an hypothesis emphasising the role of housing density, and proximity between persons - such as that advocated by Cage ('Infant Mortality Rates') for earlier twentieth-century Glasgow - would appear plausible, although, of course, significant differentials in household circumstances between illegitimate and other children would also have to be evident.
24. The constructs of rural and urban are possibly deceptive in that a number of micro-level studies have shown that within country parishes bastardy appears to have been lower in the purely rural districts than in the more densely populated village streets (see Blaikie, Illegitimacy, 130-33, on sharp distinctions in Mamoch (Banffshire); J. Robin, 'Illegitimacy in Colyton, 1851-1881', Continuity and Change, 2 (1987), 307-42 (p. 335); Paddock, 'Illegitimacy in Victorian Dumfriesshire', 127-29; J. M. Phayer, 'Subcommunal bastardy and rural religion: micro and macro aspects of the debate on the sexual revolution', Journal of Sex Research, 17 (1981), 74-95). If it can be demonstrated that infant mortality is also (as we would expect) concentrated in the more densely populated parts of rural parishes, then an hypothesis emphasising the role of housing density, and proximity between persons - such as that advocated by Cage ('Infant Mortality Rates') for earlier twentieth-century Glasgow - would appear plausible, although, of course, significant differentials in household circumstances between illegitimate and other children would also have to be evident.
25. The constructs of rural and urban are possibly deceptive in that a number of micro-level studies have shown that within country parishes bastardy appears to have been lower in the purely rural districts than in the more densely populated village streets (see Blaikie, Illegitimacy, 130-33, on sharp distinctions in Mamoch (Banffshire); J. Robin, 'Illegitimacy in Colyton, 1851-1881', Continuity and Change, 2 (1987), 307-42 (p. 335); Paddock, 'Illegitimacy in Victorian Dumfriesshire', 127-29; J. M. Phayer, 'Subcommunal bastardy and rural religion: micro and macro aspects of the debate on the sexual revolution', Journal of Sex Research, 17 (1981), 74-95). If it can be demonstrated that infant mortality is also (as we would expect) concentrated in the more densely populated parts of rural parishes, then an hypothesis emphasising the role of housing density, and proximity between persons - such as that advocated by Cage ('Infant Mortality Rates') for earlier twentieth-century Glasgow - would appear plausible, although, of course, significant differentials in household circumstances between illegitimate and other children would also have to be evident.
26. The constructs of rural and urban are possibly deceptive in that a number of micro-level studies have shown that within country parishes bastardy appears to have been lower in the purely rural districts than in the more densely populated village streets (see Blaikie, Illegitimacy, 130-33, on sharp distinctions in Mamoch (Banffshire); J. Robin, 'Illegitimacy in Colyton, 1851-1881', Continuity and Change, 2 (1987), 307-42 (p. 335); Paddock, 'Illegitimacy in Victorian Dumfriesshire', 127-29; J. M. Phayer, 'Subcommunal bastardy and rural religion: micro and macro aspects of the debate on the sexual revolution', Journal of Sex Research, 17 (1981), 74-95). If it can be demonstrated that infant mortality is also (as we would expect) concentrated in the more densely populated parts of rural parishes, then an hypothesis emphasising the role of housing density, and proximity between persons - such as that advocated by Cage ('Infant Mortality Rates') for earlier twentieth-century Glasgow - would appear plausible, although, of course, significant differentials in household circumstances between illegitimate and other children would also have to be evident.
27. Mitchison, British population change, 50.
28. Paddock, 'Illegitimacy in Victorian Dumfriesshire', 124, 139-40.
29. Another post-mortem revealed 'suffocation, the result of natural causes'.
30. Of the 51 infants dying within one month, 23 appear to have died from endogenous causes (10, all legitimate were premature). Of these, 18 were illegitimate and 5 illegitimate. The comparatively low ratio for illegitimates here has to be seen in the context of the 8 bastard deaths in the first month for which no medical details were forthcoming.
31. L. Leneman and R Mitchison, 'Girls in trouble: the social and geographical setting of illegitimacy in early modern Scotland', Journal of Social History, 22, 483-97 (p. 495).
32. Seton, The causes of illegitimacy particularly in Scotland, (Edinburgh, 1860), Appendix V.
33. 'A North-Country Woman', Infanticide and its cause, (London, 1862).
34. Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Law, (Scotland), PP 1844 , Appendix, Pt. III, p. 102, Qs. 631-2.
35. Rothiemay Parochial Board, Record of Applications, 1855-69 (hereafter Rothiemay Apps.), 62 (16/1/64); Marnoch General Register of Poor (hereafter GRP), 14 (12/1/80); Rothiemay Apps., 19 (15/4/58); Marnoch GRP, 99 (15/2/86).
36. Rothiemay Apps., 37 (21/3/61); Rothiemay GRP, 112 (6/5/82).
37. I. Levitt, Poverty and welfare in Scotland, 1890-1948 (Edinburgh, 1988), 7.
38. W. Watson, The Poor Law from the Poor Man's Standpoint', in T. Ivory ed., Pauperism and the Poor Laws, (Edinburgh, 1870), 13.
39. Rothiemay Apps., 83 (4/6/67); see J. D. Wilson et al, 'Law of infanticide', Transactions of National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, (1877), 284-312 (p. 307): 'There could not be a greater temptation to infanticide than the workhouse [meaning poorhouse] treatment of women in Scotland. A woman with one child is refused entry but when qualified by having two she is admitted.' Foundling hospitals were subsequently advocated. 'A North-Country Woman' ('Infanticide') claimed that infanticide and abortion were 'unknown in the countryside', but, as with rape and incest, the threat of capital punishment meant that cases very rarely came to light although they doubtless occurred. The fact that 'general debility' was sometimes given as the cause of death for illegitimates would tend to strengthen the malnutrition hypothesis.
40. T. Ferguson, Scottish social welfare, 1864-1914, (London, 1958), 260-61; 49th Report of the Board of Supervision for the Relief of the Poor and Public Health in Scotland, 1893-94, PP 1894 (C7515), xli, Appendix (B), No.2, p. 84.
41. M. Bengstsson, Det hotade barnet: tre generationers spädbarns - och barnadödlighet i 1800-talets Linköping, (Linköping, 1996).
42. Blaikie, Illegitimacy, 125.
43. Paddock, 'Illegitimacy in Victorian Dumfriesshire', 297-303.
44. A. Blaikie, 'A kind of loving: illegitimacy, grandparents and the rural economy of NorthEast Scotland, 1750-1900', Scottish Economic and Social History, 14 (1994), 41-57.
45. C. W. Mills, 'Situated actions and vocabularies of motive', American Sociological Review, 5 (1940), 904-13; L. Prior, The social organisation of death (London, 1989); I. Loudon, 'Maternal mortality, 1880-1950: some regional and international comparisons', Social History of Medicine, 1 (1988), 183-228.
46. C. W. Mills, 'Situated actions and vocabularies of motive', American Sociological Review, 5 (1940), 904-13; L. Prior, The social organisation of death (London, 1989); I. Loudon, 'Maternal mortality, 1880-1950: some regional and international comparisons', Social History of Medicine, 1 (1988), 183-228.
47. C. W. Mills, 'Situated actions and vocabularies of motive', American Sociological Review, 5 (1940), 904-13; L. Prior, The social organisation of death (London, 1989); I. Loudon, 'Maternal mortality, 1880-1950: some regional and international comparisons', Social History of Medicine, 1 (1988), 183-228.
48. Blaikie, Illegitimacy, 158-84.
49. Rothiemay Apps., 34 (3/12/60).
50. Above details from Torthorwald Parochial Board/ Local Government Board, Register of Applications for Poor Relief, 1891-1916.
51. Details from family reconstitution forms - see Blaikie, Illegitimacy, 149.
52. Rothiemay GRP, 69 (8/11/70).