ABSTRACT
The history of substitute care for children reflects society's changing responses to the needs of children brought up apart from their parents. Childcare in the first half of the twentieth century was still predominantly concerned with the physical well-being of children. It was only in the 1920s that the infant mortality rate began to fall. Once children had been separated from their parents, it became increasingly difficult for them to ever be restored. Large numbers of both orphaned and illegitimate children following the 1914-18 war led to increasing demands for the establishment of legal adoption, and the passing of the 1926 Adoption Act. The examination of childcare philosophies over the last hundred years reveals how, for a number of reasons, children who were cared for away from their families were often completely severed from their roots and kept in ignorance of their origins. Economic growth and prosperity were a feature of the post-war period for many.
