General Chat

I have put a link to this thread on the FLR post, Anthony, just to save people duplicating searches when the details are on here :-)

Anthony ................


to attempt to answer some of your questions


it is fine to answer questions in one post :-)


Barbara Williams could have been a social worker employed by the hospital, as against one employed by the Council's Social Services ........ the SS may well not have any record of her.


Abandoned babies can be baptized by the person in charge of the hospital / orphanage, etc

I would suggest that the twins might have been very small when born, and thus the hospital could not release them .................... things re premature babies were very different in 1961 than now!

That may be one reason why they were registered so late.

You never know .............. she may even have been told that the twins were unlikely to survive.

Theresa possibly took the chance to disappear!

OR ............... in the climate of the day, she could have been asked by the nurses or Sister of the Unit, or the hospital's Social Services, if she wanted the babies adopted or fostered. If she had said "yes", she would have been encouraged to leave the hospital and not return, to avoid bonding with the children.



"I also noticed that on the Record of Application for SS it says 'Application has to-day been made by Sister, Queen Marys Maternity Home'. I put this down as a 'Ward Sister'. Could this be the birth mother sister?"


That would have been the Sister in charge of the Maternity Unit, and thus in charger of all the babies in her care.

No connection at all to the mother.


Does it give a name for this lady, or just her position?


Sisters of wards and units were all-empowering back then ................. they bowed down only to the Matron of the hospital!



Regarding naming the twins ...................... the mother would have been asked what names she was giving the babies just before or just after they were born. It's obvious that Theresa had thought about that, at least for nano-seconds!

Remember she had been carrying them for almost 9 months, and so may well have thought about the names.






Is Wilfrid Martin's name definitely shown in the Name of Father column?