Fact Sheet #18: 1960's INVESTIGATION INTO UNMARRIED MOTHERS HOMES

Jill Nicholson investigated and assessed Unmarried Mothers Homes in the 1960’s. Her book ‘Mother and Baby Homes’ sponsored by the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and Her Child was published in 1968 when the Christian Church in the private sector ran 80% of Unmarried Mothers Homes.

None of the girls she interviewed was aware they had rights. A Worker had placed 232 of the 240 girls in Homes. Girls who wanted to stay at home with their families didn’t know they were free to do so. One girl who was sent to a Home said she thought ‘It was the law or something.’

Nicholson exposed the fact that single pregnant girls and unmarried mothers were used as cheap labour, denied their rights and had access to their babies restricted.

She revealed there was no control list of Unmarried Mothers Homes operating in Britain, no legal requirement for registration, and no common code of practice.

Nicholson found facilities in Unmarried Mothers Homes were grossly inadequate and far below acceptable standards, and she stressed the need for all Homes to be registered, not just those where babies were delivered on the premises. The system of Local Authority inspection and supervision was totally unsatisfactory with unacceptably low standards being tolerated by inspecting authorities.

Nicholson commented: ‘one of the worst Unmarried Mothers Homes had been inspected regularly for years. The Matron said frankly she saw no value in local Authority supervision if such low standards continued to be tolerated.’

The findings in Jill Nicholson’s book should have promoted an immediate Government ordered inquiry, investigation, changes, and recommendations. There was no inquiry, no investigation, no recommendations, nothing changed.

• 25 pregnant girls and unmarried mothers continued to share one bath and one toilet.
• Newly delivered mothers had to buy their sanitary towels from the Home, those who couldn’t afford them had to improvise with hard shiny pieces of Izal toilet paper.
• Facilities and diet remained grossly inadequet..
• Nursery’s remained unheated and unhygienic.
• Potentially dangerous ‘sling cribs’ continued to be used.
• Homes continued to fail to organize or run classes on childbirth.
• Homes continued to fail to inform girls of their rights.
• Unmarried mothers continued to be denied their rights.
• Unmarried mothers continued to lose their babies to coercive adoption.

Copyright © Patricia Basquill, 2002 - 2010