Bedford's Lost Children

This publication introduces you to the lives and circumstances of many children lost to their families, friends and to society in situations often difficult for us to comprehend. It opens a door into Victorian Bedford and is revealing in content and in the nostalgic pictures of a past life, people and edifices now gone, replaced, reshaped for a modern world. Prejudices, taboos, stigmas no longer familiar. The most impoverished living conditions, doctors using sleighs in the freeze-ups, merriment on the frozen river in Bedford. Perhaps the research relates to you personally; you may find your family name or address mentioned and are any of these children long-lost relatives of yours? If so you may wish to investigate further, adding to your family history.

Have you heard of sop, or milk of sulphur, of drays, snatch boxes, dead anchors, mush fakers? What do you know about the Bastardy Act? Extend your knowledge as you turn the pages, learn about the Bedford Infirmary and of some of the last hangings in Bedford Prison, public and private.

You may consider how much more fortunate we are today and yet people are still falling prey to the river and parents have recently been convicted of murdering their own children.