Fostering records for Hammersmith

[madetotreasure]

Hi there. I am trying to trace the fostering details of John Clayton Vousden born illegitimately on 17 July 1919 to Frances Beaumont Vousden. He was given up for fostering soon after birth and was brought up by a family in Fulham. Many thanks

[Wilkes_ml]

There were no official adoption records until 1927, so I would guess that applies to fostering too. I think most fostering/adoption took place within the extended family but I'm sure there were plenty of children who were fostered or adopted to complete strangers.

[madetotreasure]

I was rather hoping there might have been a charity or religious institution of some kind that would have 'brockered' this. The foster family were certainly not connected to the mother. Thank you anyway.

[Wilkes_ml]

Unfortunately, even if there were any local charities, they may not have kept any records. If nothing comes up on a google search for "Hammersmith & charity & fostering/adoption" then there probably wasn't any known "official" charities.

If you are trying to find who the child was fostered to, then I'm not sure how you could find this information without waiting until the 1921 census comes out or finding a baptism for him ( and that would mean the foster parents not changing his name).

If his foster parents did change his name, then you could check death records for men with that birth date...but of course that only applies to men who died after a certain point in time when death records (and indexes) started to record actual dates of birth.

[Peter Goodey]

Fostering would have been mainly (exclusively?) the responsibility of the Poor Law authorities - the "Social Services" of the day.

Have a look through London Metropolitan Archives catalogue -
https://search.lma.gov.uk/scripts/mwi...LMA_OPAC?LOGON

Enter reference code HHBG and click "Search". Then drill down through successive layers.

The section "Schools and Children" would be good. Have a look particularly for documents with titles starting "Register of children..." particularly "Register of children boarded out"

1919 is a bit recent to hope to find anything online. You would have to visit LMA in person. But check that files will be available before travelling - watch out for files being closed for 100 years. That doesn't mean you can't get to see what you want - you can slap in a Freedom of Information request. This is standard procedure. Shout if you need help.

[Peter Goodey]

Another thought. Do you know where he went to school? School registers might be helpful if you can track them down.

[madetotreasure]

Excellent advice, thank you. I will trawl the LMA as you suggest