Genealogy Chat

Anyone know how affiliation orders were enforced in 1900 ..it was an imprisonable offence not to pay the weekly child maintenance but who would have overseen that this was being done ?

Google's your best bet...............

An affiliation order was an order of the court. It is a reasonable assumption that once told by the mother that the putative father was not complying with the order the court would issue a warrant for the putative father to be brought before the court by the police. Once before the court it would decide on any further action such as a fine or period of imprisonment.

There are some articles in the newspapers in the British Newspaper Archive on this site. The father/spouse was taken before the magistrates for failure to comply.

In some cases he was ordered to pay up, in others a reduction in the amount to be paid was pronounced

Yes i found police guidelines on google of how non-compliance could be punished ...but I just wondered in days before cheques how money was handed over + who checked proof of payment ..haven't found that on google . I wondered if payments could be transferred to whoever was caring for the child or if that would involve another costly court case .

From a google search, this is a bit hopeless as no dates provided:

'During that time, the burden of proof, chasing down the father and collecting payment from him was the sole jurisdiction of the mother. Later on the process eased a bit by appointing collectors to take charge of collecting the payments but this took quite a long time to happen.'

I am reminded of an old joke.

Each week a mother sent her son to collect the maintenance money from his father. The time came when the lad was due to reach his 16th birthday and as he collected the money that week his father said to him, "You tell your mother that now you are 16, I'm not your father any more." The lad returned home to his mother and told her what his father had said.

"You go back there now son." she said, "And tell him he never was." :-)

I rather like that one Jonesey!!

Brigid - is this relating to Alisoun's thread, which you obviously must be connected to? If so have either of you gone back to the records office to see if there were any proceedings after the original affilliation order?

http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards/board/ancestors/thread/1300276?d=desc

thanks for this ;
I hope once the father had accepted paternity in court + paid initial costs he would have continued to do so . As is Joneseys joke ...all done on trust .
yes Flip I'm Alisoun's sister .
Am awaiting further news from records office The affiliation order is rather a beautiful document
but think if payments were informally transferred there would not be records

I haven't re-read the earlier thread, but if Maisey was unoficially adopted by the Hollis's (obviously before official adoptions) - I believe she was referred to on one of the census as "adopted daughter"? - the maintenance payments may have stopped. They would nowadays, as the adoptive parents take on the financial responsibility.

flip; maisie was on census as a "boarder" aged 1, as adoptive daughter aged 11
I suspected that the 30yr old Edith Hallis could have considered giving up the proffession as shirt-maker(her job on census10yrs earlier) to look after a baby if 4shillings a week maintenance was comparable to her earnings .If there is any legal evidence of this I have great faith that the wirral archive service will come up trumps for me again .

I meant this to be a general discussion because a lot of people have stories to tell and someone may know how their family member received payments.

more + more likely he did pay for at least 2 yrs ,as he hung around til 1901,.non payment was an imprisonable offence
as an alien he would have had to be extra careful to stay on right side of law .

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