If you look at the article 'The proportion of adoptees who have received their birth records in England and Wales' by Rupert Rushbrooke, in the ONS's journal ‘Population Trends’,
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloa...n/PT104_v3.pdf[/url]
you will see the following.
'... From 1927 until 1975, out-of-family adoption was seen as having two main objectives. Firstly, the adoptive parents and adoptive child were to form a family that would appear to be as much like a natural family as possible. Secondly, the adoptee was to be given a new start in life, free of the taint of illegitimacy. In order to achieve these two aims, it was important that the adoptee’s natural family and adoptive family be kept entirely, and permanently, separate. This was achieved by giving the adoptee a new, adoptive name; arranging that the natural mother would never know this new name; and also ensuring that the adoptive parents and the adoptee would never know the adoptee’s original, birth name. Thus, the philosophy was one of a ‘new start’ for the child. The standard procedure was as follows. After the baby was born, his or her full name was entered in the birth register in the usual way. The mother chose the baby’s first name, or names, and the baby’s surname was usually that of the mother. This information was recorded in the birth entry in the register where the child’s birth was registered, which formed the legal record of the baby’s birth, kept by the Registrar General. At the time of the adoption, the baby was taken from the natural mother by the Adoption Society (or other party) and placed with the adoptive parents. The adoptive parents and the natural mother did not meet. The baby was then renamed by the adoptive parents. They chose a new first name, or names, for the baby, and they gave the baby their own surname. These details were entered onto the Adopted Children Register, kept by the Registrar General. This new entry became the child’s new birth entry – from which a birth certificate could be obtained – for the rest of the adoptee’s life. All adoptees therefore had two birth entries: the original entry, and the adoptive birth entry (which replaced it), each entry referring to the adoptee by a different name. Only the Adoption Society and the Registrar General, however, had enough information to link the two sets of records, and both of them kept that information entirely confidential.
EXCEPTIONS TO THE ABOVE PROCEDURE
While the above procedure was followed exactly for a great many adoptees, especially after the 1949 Act, which tightened up on confidentiality in adoption, it is important to stress that this was not always the case. Sometimes the adoptive parents learned the birth details of their adoptive child and, years later, passed this information on to him or her. In such cases, therefore, the adoptee did not need to apply to the Registrar General. In addition, there are several other ways in which adoptees can sometimes obtain their birth details without applying to the Registrar General. This area will be examined in more detail, but the general point needs making here that, for a variety of reasons, there are many adoptees who can, and do, acquire their birth details by unofficial means, and who are therefore not included in ONS statistics –or in the subsequent analyses...'
The article's author thanks a; Dr. Alexina McWhinnie (University of Dundee) for her advice and information on the history of adoption. One has to wonder where Dr Mc Whinnie divined her information from certainly she had never looked at the sources quoted by Dr Jenny Keating in the article quoted in the first post of this thread. Nor I suspect has Dr Mc Whinnie or anyone else involved in preparing Rupert Rushbrooke's article ever consult either the Adoption of Infants Act 1926 or the Adoption of Children Act 1948, the main laws governing adoption prior to the Adoption of Children Act 1976.
So given that lack of 'home work' it is perhaps not so difficult to see why when called before the the Standing Committee on the Adoption and Children Bill, a civil servant from the Office of National Statistics tried to claim that prior to 1976 the only way for an adopted person to obtain access to his original birth record was seeking a judicial review. This was said in support of the governments attempt to overturn the existing law and deny adoptees access to birth records unless the birth relatives approved. Many people find it hard to believe that that was the government intention, but see this press release from Barnardos and other agencies.
http://www.barnardos.org.uk/newsande...ase.jsp?id=363
If you ask why things have been as they have throughout the last few years during which adoption law has been being reviewed? The probable answer is, personal agenda.
It is time those of us whose lives have been so disadvantaged by the pointless secrecy in adoption stood up and made our views known, and asked for an inquiry into the way that the review in to adoption and subsequent changes in law have been carried out.
Disgruntled
.