I was doing a little research into one of the Regency staples the other day -- the rescued waif. This story standby typically involves a girl adopted into a noble family, treated as one of them, inheriting with the others.
Would this actually work? I asks meself.
So I look about a bit and decided,
loosely speaking -- yes.
Strictly speaking -- no.
And isn't that helpful?
Sometimes we speak of 'adoption' in a fuzzy, imprecise way. But there's an important distinction between legally taking a child to stand in the position of a biological child with all the rights and responsibilities that come with that versus assuming care and custody of a child in a limited or informal way.
Until
the 1920s, there was no formal legal mechanism for adopting children in
Great Britain.
No. I didn't know that either.
I just love finding out stuff when I go researching.
"Why any kid would want to be an orphan is beyond me."
Miss Hannigan
What you had in Britain was just a whole variety of fostering, indenture, wardship, guardianship, apprenticeship, and various less-formal-arrangement-ships . . . but nothing that put the child on an equal footing with children born in a marriage.
So how did they manage the whole orphaned-child problem?
Ordinary working folk, from simple decency or from a desire for another pair of working hands, would often take in a neighbor's child when the parents died. Mistress Taylor down the road might take in a girl who could help with her little ones. The local vicar might find space for another scullery maid in the kitchen. No official legal guardianship was established, but everybody in the village likely sighed in relief and went on to other problems, of which they doubtless had a plenitude.
If no
one stepped forward to care for orphans, they 'fell upon the parish',
which was a hard place to land.
Local officials might solve the
problem of these pesky orphans by apprenticing them.
This apprenticeship was a mixed bag.
For parish orphans, it might be called the poor man's guardianship. The contract gave the master rights over the child, but also bound him to feed, clothe, care for the child, and train him or her up in a trade. In earlier centuries, apprentices were often treated as part of the household -- an extended quasi family of Master, servants and apprentices. Even in 1820, in Rural Rides, Cobbett could still speak of traditional farms where master and servants, dairymaids and the farmer's daughters sat down at the same table, a disparate but united household.
Unfortunately, few localities had the funds to bid children to desirable places. (One common form of charity was to leave money in one's will to buy apprenticeships for poor boys.)
Some orphans got lucky. Some, like Oliver Twist, not so much.
Looking up into the upper echelons of society, since that's where the fictional orphan above will end up --
The
laws and customs of primogeniture meant that men of substance, titled
or untitled, would often consider themselves
responsible for a widespread group of family, friends and dependents.
They'd snabbled the property and money. The flip side of that
concentration of wealth was they were expected to take care of the
family.
So your average Merchant Prince or belted earl (why belted and how was everybody else holding up their trousers?) might have a pack of widows, spinsters, dotty great uncles and assorted orphans, only tenuously connected to him, land on his doorstep, expecting to be provided for.
Remember in Heyer's Frederica. Our heroine applies to the 'head of the family' — a very distant cousin — for assistance. He was the winner in the big primogeniture lotto. Time to pay up, bucko.
Another sort of fosterage was not uncommon. Couples without children of their own would often foster a child,
usually related, and raise it as their own. The child would inherit
from this couple through the will. For instance, Jane Austen's brother
Edward left his birth family to be fostered by a much richer cousin, Thomas Knight, and eventually inherited
the Knight estates.
Then there were guardianships. I do not know why Romance heroes and heroines are so unlucky, but there are just troops of them under some kind of guardianship.
There were several sorts of legal guardians.
First off were guardians in socage. This is for heirs and heiresses of landed property. You do not have real estate, this is not for you.
Blackstone says, "socage . . . who are also called
guardians by the common law. These take place only
when the minor is
entitled to some estate in lands, and then by the common law the
guardianship devolves upon his next of kin, to whom the inheritance
cannot possibly descent ; as, where the estate descended from his
father, in this case his uncle by the mother's side cannot possibly
inherit this estate, and therefore shall be the guardian .
For the law judges it improper to trust the person of an infant in his
hands, who may be possibility become heir to him." Blackstone's Commentaries
What that is saying is that if the young woman has a piece of property -- say a nice house or half of Northumberland or something -- her guardian will not be the father's brother who is just bound to have wicked intentions toward her. The custody of the child goes to the closest blood relative who cannot inherit, who will scheme to marry her off to his fish-lipped son.
Second, we have guardians by nature. That's going to be the father, first off, and the mother, if the father is dead. When the father does not explicitly appoint a guardian for a female under sixteen, the guardian was the mother. Her guardianship extends until the girl reaches 21. An mom doesn't get control of the property. Only to the custody of the child. A man will be appointed guardian for the property.
Joan Wolf's The Arrangement deals with a situation of this nature.
Finally, there's the 'guardian by statute', or 'testamentary guardians'. This guardian is the one spelled out in a will. If we want young Hannah Tweeting to be left in the care of Lord Farthing, all we have to do is put Farthing's name in her father's will.
". . . enacts, that any father, under age or of full age, may by deed or will dispose of the custody of his child, either born or unborn, to any person, except a popish recusant, either in possession or reversion, till such child attains the age of one and twenty years." Blackstone's Commentaries
Only the father could appoint a guardian, not the mum. If the appointed guardian was unable or unwilling to serve, the guardian didn't have the right to substitute another. If nobody was named guardian or if the unfortunate man died, this ended in the Court of Chancery, where nobody wins. One didn't inherit a guardianship.
What all these formal and informal relationships had in common was that the child did
not legally become the child of the foster parents, equal in all
respects to those born to that couple. The relationship
between foster child and foster parent or between guardian and ward was always more limited than modern adoption.
In Her Ladyship's Companion, my heroine Melissa was abandoned on
the doorstep of a Vicarage and raised by the Vicar as his own. The
difference between a foster child taken in by kindness and a legally
adopted daughter of the modern sort becomes apparent when, upon the death of the Vicar,
poor Melissa is kicked out to fend for herself.
So, could a titled nobleman adopt a child?
As I say, sorta.
While I was looking at this subject, adoption, I ran down a mental list of fictional orphans -- Jane Eyre, Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, (just about everybody in Wuthering Heights), Tom Jones, Superman, Pip of Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, Harry Potter, Fanny Price, Moll Flanders, John Worthing (The Importance of Being Ernest), Penelope Creed (Heyer's Corinthian), Tarzan.
My favorite is Kim.
I just like his sass and style.
So tell me, who is your favorite fictional orphan and why?
One lucky commenter (US only) will win a copy of Mischief and Mistletoe.