St Pelagia's Convent, Highgate 1956

[Pigling]

I believe that the mother of my nephew gave birth to a daughter, in St Pelagia's convent in September 1956. Do any records of this 'Home for destitute Catholic mothers' still exist? Are they accessible online or in record offices? Even an admission register would help to confirm this!

[christanel]

Here (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10932969/Convent-that-forced-young-mothers-to-give-up-their-babies.html)is a quite distressing account of this institution but at the end of the article it says this

"From the 1940s to 2008, when it ceased acting as an adoption agency, the CCS helped arrange more than 6,000 adoptions of babies born at institutions such as St Pelagia’s, vetting would-be parents and finding a suitable match for the babies. But it also said it helped many more numbers of woman keep their children.
Dr Keenan said the society now helped adopted children use its own and other official records to trace their birth parents. “We have arranged many reunions and have done so since before legislation gave people the right to trace their birth parents,” she said.

http://www.cathchild.org.uk/our-services/post-adoption/

Christina