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  • Half baptised

    Recent searches through local baptism registers, approx. late 1700s to c1810 showed several children noted as 'half baptised'.
    What does this mean please?
    Is it the same as a private baptism and a later received into the church notation?
    I did note that one of the children was the child of a clegyman.
    I have viewed many baptism records, but never came across this term before.

  • #2
    Gwyn

    I needed the answer to this question myself a couple of years ago and found it here...



    Eve McLaughlin is the author of the McLaughlin Guides for family historians and when I used her answer in an essay I wasn't corrected

    Chris
    Avatar....My darling mum, Irene June Robinson nee Pearson 1931-2019.

    'Take nothing on its looks, take everything on evidence. There is no better rule' Charles Dickens, Great Expectations.

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    • #3
      Chris
      Many thanks for the link. They were nothing to do with my family, but I'm intrigued now and will go back to check if it was just one minister who noted such events.
      It won't further my research, but it's all part of the learning process.
      I appreciate your help. Thank you.

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      • #4
        Yes the expression half-baptised was often used in place of private baptism.

        However there is an error in the explanation as it has always been unlawful to charge or indeed accept a fee for a baptism as baptism is a sacrament.

        The 48th Canon of the Council of Elvira (A.D. 305) puts it this way-
        “those who are baptised shall not (as the custom has been) cast money into the font lest the priest should seem to dispense for a fee what he has received gratis”.
        This has been repeated tat various other Councils and in 1872 an Act of Parliament stated –
        “it shall not be lawful for the minister, clerk in orders, vestry clerk, warden, or any other person, to demand any fee or reward for the celebration of the sacrament of baptism, or for the registry thereof.”

        Note the final words “registry of”, this was because various earlier Acts required a fee for registering the baptism. This fee for registration was often confused for a fee for baptising.
        Cheers
        Guy
        Guy passed away October 2022

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        • #5
          Guy
          Thank you for this extra information.
          Very helpful.

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