WIRRAL Council wants to put records of hundreds of baby burials online. It’s believed this move will help make things easier for families trying to locate buried relatives who have been lost for decades, or whose parents may never have known where they were buried.
Before the 1980s, it was understood to have been common practice across the UK that when a woman had a miscarriage or a stillbirth, hospital staff would quickly take the baby away. Families were sometimes told that if they quickly had another child and didn’t see the baby, they would get over it.
In Wirral and across the country, stillborn babies were often taken to cemeteries such as Landican or Frankby and buried in graves sometimes containing up to 60 or more children or at the foot of someone being buried that day.
In Wirral, awareness has been raised by a campaign by Gina Jacobs and others who want an apology from the government for the practice which meant they were never allowed to see their children before they were taken away. They have also successfully campaigned for a memorial for those who have never been able to find their children or relatives.
The issue has picked up the attention of several national publications in recent weeks following the discovery of a mass grave in Royton Cemetery in Oldham where 300 babies were discovered to have been buried. Following uproar over the issue, Oldham councillors voted in favour of putting cemetery records online.
Now Wirral Council is looking to do the same. It’s not currently known how many babies were buried in this way but the bodies of babies have been located in several cemeteries including Landican and Rake Lane.
Burial dates previously published by the LDRS showed that burials took place over more than a year at three large graves at Landican Cemetery. In one of the larger graves, the first individual burial took place on February 2 1967 but the final and 85th took place on September 17 the following year.
In another, the first burial was on September 16, 1968 and the 62nd burial took place on December 12 1969. In another, the burial of 73 babies took place over the course of 15 months.
Gina Jacobs, who has called for Wirral to put its records online, thinks the move will make things easier for families but will also ease pressures on the staff at Landican. She said: “I know how hard they work. They haven’t got the staff to deal with it and I know it would make things much easier for everyone across the cemetery.”
Following what happened in Oldham, she said: “I get more and more angry by the day with what I am hearing. It’s too hard for people and it’s got to be made easier. It’s got to change because there will be more people coming to the cemetery.”
Gina has also been campaigning for an apology from the government which was raised in Parliament by her previous MP Margaret Greenwood. She told the LDRS: “We need acknowledgement and we need an apology and we need all those records put online. I am so angry with the way we were treated.”
Pointing to the experience of a family she had recently helped locate their child, she added: “They weren’t allowed to see it. Why weren’t they allowed? Who with a scrap of humanity would stop a mother seeing her baby? How dare they.”
Gina said what’s happened in Oldham had also reopened fresh questions for her about the management of the graves at Landican, something Wirral Council has previously tried to answer. One woman previously told the LDRS how she remembers seeing plywood across one grave but did not see what was underneath.
Answering these questions has been made difficult by the fact the cases are from many decades ago and took place before Wirral Council was formed in 1974. No references could be found to grave management in decades of Birkenhead County Borough cemetery committee minutes held by the Wirral Archives Service that were reviewed by the LDRS.
She said: “The council has said a lot that I just do not understand. Our graves at Landican are 10 foot deep. They said that every time a baby came in, they dug up 10 feet of soil but I just don’t know how they did that.”
At a tourism, communities, culture and leisure committee meeting on September 19, Conservative councillor Gary Bennett asked for the council to review its records in relation to the historical burials of stillborn children. He told the LDRS: “I believe that all records relating to stillborn babies need to be properly collated so when requested by concerned parents, siblings and relatives, this information should be easily available.”
He added: “The cemetery administration staff do an outstanding job in what can be difficult circumstances, with limited resources and staffing levels. If the council moves forward with this work programme and compiles a central register, I believe that it would be a huge leap forward for this borough and could set a groundbreaking precedent which any and all boroughs could move forward with, copy, and emulate.”
The move is expected to get cross-party support as Labour councillor Jerry Williams is also supporting Gina’s campaign. He said: “It’s in the early stages but we are very much working to try and move this forward.”
A Wirral Council spokesperson said: “The burial records for all Wirral Council-run cemeteries have been available to view on microfilm for more than 15 years (these are held within Birkenhead Library) so those wishing to find a grave can visit and view our burial records there, if they are able.
“We are currently working with our software suppliers to explore options to digitise our burial records.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “Our sympathies are with Mrs Jacobs and all the women and families affected.
“We expect all hospitals to provide as much information as they have available to any parents who inquire about what happened to their stillborn babies, no matter how long ago they passed away.”
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