Baby Farmers of the 19th Century by Sylvia Perrini

The majority of baby farmers were caring and honest. Legitimate baby farms supplied a much in demand service for unmarried, pregnant women in the Victorian era. Baby farmers were women who looked after children for a fee. The articles attracted a great deal of attention and brought the term 'baby farming' into widespread use. Over the course of the following year the British Medical Journal, published in a series of sensationalist pieces that many baby farmers committed serial infanticide. The term 'Baby Farming' was first used by the British Medical Journal in 1867, in an article entitled 'Baby-Farming' in which they described a mother who had turned her children over to the 'baby farmer' with the clear understanding that they would be neglected until they died. Baby farmers both repulsed and fascinated the public of the day. The battle against baby farming was fought more or less continuously from 1865, to 1943, seventy-eight years to push through effective legislation to regulate this social evil.In this short book, author Sylvia Perrini profiles eleven Baby Farmers. The pregnant daughter would be sent to the country and once the infant was born, he or she would be farmed out and, all being well, forgotten. For the middle-classes, baby farms offered the perfect solution. Anyone could be a baby farmer there were regulations to conform to, qualifications to be met, paperwork, and supervision of the premises or type of care the children received.

There were strict laws against the mistreatment of animals but, until 1872, there were such laws to govern baby farmers. Barely a week would pass without the police finding a little corpse abandoned in a railway carriage, left on the banks of a canal, or thrown into the swiftly flowing River Thames. A number of them, though, abandoned, starved, or even killed the infants in their care to increase their profits. The articles attracted a great deal of attention and brought the term baby farming into widespread use. The term Baby Farming was first used by the British Medical Journal in 1867, in an article entitled Baby-Farming in which they described a mother who had turned her children over to the baby farmer with the clear understanding that they would be neglected until they died.

In this short book, author Sylvia Perrini profiles eleven Baby Farmers.

Baby Farmers of the 19th Century by Sylvia Perrini