YEAR : 2024

ISBN : 978-1-87-312492-5

FORMAT :Size 245mm x 174mm 216 pages Softback & E-book

The Registrar-General reported in 1864 that the number of illegitimate births registered in Cumberland was almost twice the national average.
Was the population of the county more ‘immoral’ than other counties – or just healthier, so that more conceptions survived to be born, or were more babies registered because of the ‘lamentable absence, amongst both parties to illegitimacy, of that deep sense of shame’ apparently exhibited in proceedings at Penrith’s Petty Sessions?
The Illegitimate Thread is a detailed examination, covering about 125 years, of illegitimacy in four Cumbrian townships: Gamblesby, Glassonby, Little Salkeld and Hunsonby with Winskill. Together they make up the parish of Addingham in the Eden Valley, east of Penrith.
It is based upon a broad and deep investigation of a multitude of records, the majority in the public domain, with an emphasis upon the personal stories of the women, children and men.
What came before the birth of the illegitimate child, what happened after to the mothers and children? And what can be established about the fathers?
Lydia Gray is an independent researcher who has been investigating Addingham for some fifteen years, initially with an interest in local Methodism but then broadening her interest to the wider social history of this rural parish.

To order a printed version contact Tony Wilmott, Meadow View, Tindale Fell, Brampton,
Cumbria CA8 2QG. If you have any queries please email: t.wilmott@mail.com

BACK TO PUBLICATIONS LIST