By bringing absent fathers to book, the Salvation Army bypassed the need for a bastardy order

© Berkshire Family History Society

By Natasha Lewer

The ‘inquiry office’  

The Salvation Army took it upon itself to track down absent fathers in the hope of either persuading them to marry the mother of their child, or else to make a financial contribution towards the child’s upbringing. The ‘inquiry office’ (based until the late 1890s at 259 Mare Street) “follows up cases of seductions etc and endeavours to bring the delinquent to book.” Staff at the inquiry office made used of the extensive network of Salvation Army officers around the country, and claimed a one in three success rate.  

Financial support  

The 1916 Mothers' Hospital Annual Report applauds the “splendid success of the unceasing efforts of those responsible to follow up the fathers of these infants. In the previous five years £6,801 15s 4d had been secured from these men and handed over to the young mothers.” These methods spared the women the experience of having to go to court to obtain a ‘bastardy order’ to force a father to acknowledge his paternity. In any case, the weekly amount that fathers were legally obliged to pay was “ludicrously small”, according to the Annual Report of 1926.