The Putative Fathers of Swinton, England

Abstract

This article addresses the shortfall in work on the treatment of illegitimacy under the old poor laws, and on the fathers involved, rather than the mothers. Moreover, through the new source use of letters from fathers, and the intensive case study of a single parish, it provides a corrective to a subject still excessively influenced by historical demography. The letters allow the social context and attitudes behind the laws to finally be examined on an individual level. They also reveal a distanced system of outparish bastardy payments. Using the personal experiences displayed, this article challenges theories on large-scale economic causation, considers the sentiment the authorities treated the fathers with, and the father's attitudes toward the repayments process. Additionally, this article makes exploratory comments on more distanced literature regarding nineteenth-century masculinity, which has rarely been paired with illegitimacy and the concept of the father outside the home.Themes tangentially explored within the historiography of bastardy range through economic fortune, sexual conduct, gender, social control, stigma, deviancy, agency, and power, and it allows us to see these themes in the most intimate of roles. Early studies were written by moralists and administrators, and many writings were high minded in tone, worrying about the impact of illegitimacy on society.