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| Henry & Lydia's 6 children's baptisms |
Whilst researching Bancroft family lines I have come across
several families where, for one reason or another, the parents had
several of their children baptised at the same time, which seems a strange
arrangement, particularly as infant mortality rates were sometimes quite high
in times gone bye.
There were many Bancroft families, living with large
families in cramped poor conditions, with poor diets and where diseases such as
smallpox were prevalent, who made it a
practice to have children baptised as early as possible, and yet there were some
parents such as Henry and Lydia Bancroft from Abbot’s Clough area of Wadsworth near Halifax Yorkshire who chose
to have their six children all baptised at the same time, when their eldest
child was 12 years of age….I wonder what the reason for this was?....here are
some possibilities.
1-The most obvious one was that they were not interested in
religion, or just could not be bothered with their local church/chapel.
2-There was sometimes a charge by the local clergy for a
baptism, and as money was tight and children were coming at a rapid rate they
just could not afford it.
3- Some families seems to have worked on the basis that if
one child was approaching marriageable age, they ought really to be 'done' so
they did the others at the same time.
4- The family had a disagreement with the local clergy, and
it’s only when a new clergyman was appointed that he would decide to round up
all the unbaptised families and have a mass baptism day. [This may well have
been the case with Henry & Lydia, as it is clear from the church records
that several other family had a family group baptism of their children on the
same date. See below]
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| Multiple family baptisms on same day |
5- There may have been an absence of a clergyman in the area
for some time.
6- The parents may have been a bit naughty and had a child
less than 9 months after marriage, so they decided to wait until the arrival of
the second child, hoping to mask the fact that the first child was conceived
before their wedding date. [This is probably the case in Henry & Lydia’s
case, as their first child Henry was born on 7th April 1825, less
than a month after their marriage on 17th March 1825 and they then
waited to have the sixth child before doing the right thing!]
Anyway whatever the reason for Henry & Lydia’s reasons,
the couple are shown on the 1841 census as living in the Halifax area with 7
children and list Henry as a ‘Labourer”.
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| 1841 census |
Both seem to have died in the 1840’s because by the 1851
census the children are living without parents.
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| 1851 census |
One child William b 1829 went on to be an important businessman
in later life as a Worsted and later Bunting Manufacturer in Halifax.....read his story by clicking HERE
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