Multiple Bancroft Family Baptisms

 

3 Baptisms on same day

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. 

Their three children were Betty 16 yrs, Thomas 15 yrs and  Sarah 13 yrs of age at the time.

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 Thomas and Hannah Bancroft from Old Town,Wadsworth near Halifax Yorkshire who chose to have their three children all baptised at the same time at Heptonstall Church when their eldest child was 16 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 Thomas and Hannah as it is clear from the church records that several other family had a family group baptism of their children around this time.

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.

Unfortunately we will probably never know the true reason why the parents decided to have all their children baptised on the same day.

 

St Thomas's Heptonstall