This report was sent from the Dept of Births, Deaths and Marriages to the Childrens Services Department to notify an
illegitimate birth
In the peak years of adoption, mothers of these children were hunted down and treated as criminals to the extent that
police were obliged to search any house or premises at any hour of the day to ascertain whether their had been an infringement
of the act.
These reports were compulsory under the Infant Life Protection Act 1905 and are still till today written into the Adoption
of Children Act, according to a letter from the Department of Families have not been enacted up since the late 1980s
Adoption workers of the era tended to be more conservative than their peers in child
protection. Lelani:- “Back then it was - Married people were good
parents; unmarried people were not. It was as simple as that - a middle class view, based solely on children’s physical
needs. The married couple could provide a home, steady income and education; the single parent couldn’t. It wasn’t
based on anything, it was just an assumption.”
