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I wish we could go back to 1927. I’ve probably posted this here before, but
make no apology for doing so again as it is very relevant to what is
happening now. There have been a lot of false arguments about secrecy in
adoption and promises made, in the last few years of consultation processes
surrounding the Adoption and Children Act.
A reminder for some that at the outset of legal adoption in England & Wales
in 1927 it was not meant to be the ridiculously secretive affair that it
later became.
The secrecy was introduced largely at the behest of the Christian based
adoption agencies that grew under influence from the USA in the 1940s.
Certainly up until 1952 in most cases it would have been possible for the
birthmother to know the names of the adopting parents, as it was recorded on
the paperwork that she would signed to give consent. Though I am told agency
and moral welfare workers often illegally covered it up.
Until 1958 all adopting parents would have a received a copy of the adoption
order from the Court which would have shown the name of the birth mother, it
was entirely up to the adoptive parents whether or not they passed that
information on to their adopted child. Since 1958 Adoption Orders have still
shown the original name of the child, making it quite possible for an
adoptee to obtain a copy of his own original birth certificate with
birthmother's name and address at time of birth, if his adoptive parents had
passed on that information.
So it has always been possible for some adoptees and birth relatives to find
each other in England & Wales. Yet strangely neither the institution of
adoption nor society its self ever collapsed as a result.
The following is a letter from A.E.A Napier (one of those who drafted the
Adoption of Infants Act 1926) to a Mrs. Hubback of the National Union of
Societies for Equal Citizenship, 11/1/1927.
‘... It is not intended that the name of the proposed adopter should be
concealed from the natural parent· It is essential... that before a legal
adoption takes place, the natural parent should have sufficient knowledge
with regard to the proposed adopter to give a real consent... and it would
not be possible for the Rules made under the Act to prescribe that the
natural parent might purport to consent to the adoption without knowing who
the proposed adopter is ...’
Quote taken from, Struggle for Identity: Issues Underlying the Enactment of
the 1926 Adoption of Children Act by Dr Jenny Keating
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Units/HUMCEN...jkeating3.html
These letters in the National Archive show that the government still did not
consider adoption to be as secretive as some would have liked even the 1950s
http://www.pro.gov.uk/inthenews/adoption/Adoption2.htm
Robin Harritt
http://harritt.net
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