Parents of Poor Children in England, 1580-1800 (review)

Patricia (Trish) Crawford was a feminist historian renowned for her groundbreaking work which placed women as individuals, and more recently the roles of mothers and fathers, firmly within the Early Modern English historiographical mainstream. Her intellectual legacy, generosity and collaborative spirit imbue the pages of this volume. In it, she expands the feminist project to examine how poor women and men negotiated and experienced the roles of parenting within the context of the dynamic institution of the family in England between 1580 and 1800. Another dimension of the experience of poor mothers and fathers, also examined here, is their subjection to the civic paternity of those of higher status who administered the Poor Laws and distributed poor relief.

The introduction ranges widely and nimbly steps out of the traditional studies of the Poor Laws and their administration, and the experiences of the poor, into the fertile new ground of poor parents. Crawford unpicks the historiography that encompasses aspects of the plight of the poor, and identifies why poverty and poor families have slipped through the cracks of existing studies of the family. She also discusses the subtle, but very real, distinctions between the 'poor' and the 'labouring poor', and the difference between 'absolute and relative poverty', as well as the fear of poverty (p. 6).

Pivotal to this book is the key concept of patriarchy, 'a slippery concept with multiple meanings' worth further 'discussion and clarification ... because it is a fundamental term for seventeenth-century political theory as well as for individuals and families' (p. 15). Against this backdrop, the key structural arguments in the book are that factors of class and gender matter when reclaiming the histories of poor parents, and that there is an important connection between fatherhood in the family, and public or 'Civic Fatherhood' in Early Modern England and the colonies.

Civic fathers held no affection for those poor fathers, mothers and children whom they selected for poor relief and charity. This was at odds with many of those poor mothers and fathers who did hold a deep emotional connection with their children. The implication of civic paternity was far-reaching for 'the authority of these public fathers was applied not only to the poor in England, but to the indigenous inhabitants of Britain's empire' (p. 29). As Crawford demonstrates, the 'policies of the North American colonists and their promoters' in their attempts at 'subjugating, Christianizing, and "civilizing" the native population' had their roots in the colonizing programme implemented in sixteenth-century Ireland (p. 234).

The sources utilized in this analysis are as broad as they are diverse, ranging from manuscript to print (including sermons, treatises and popular ballads) and illustrations (woodcuts and paintings), and they are all 'read against the grain' (p. 23). Crawford uses records where 'the voices of the poor' were 'mediated by their social superiors', such as the administration of poor relief, charities, bastardy depositions and apprenticeships records, as well as the petitions made by the poor seeking relief, admission papers to the London Foundling Hospital and charity schools (p. 24). Criminal and church court records are also gleaned for every morsel of evidence about the successes and failures of the poor as parents.

The provocative chapters 'Mothers of "the Bastard Child"' and '"Fathers" of Illegitimate Children' provide contextual accounts and qualitative case studies of the struggles and stark lives of loving, reluctant or murderous single mothers, fathers and married or cohabiting parents including step-parents. The experiences are diverse because of the unequal gendered roles of poor parents.For women, they ranged from abandonment, infanticide and execution, even suicide, to cohabitation, marriage, trans-generational care or secret adoptions.

While men fathered children in the sexual economy, they could be absent in a child's life and also in law when a child was declared a bastard and thus filius nullius. On the other hand, some poor fathers (either single or married/ cohabiting) did try to provide...