While searching for the BOWLES family of Woodford, Wiltshire, I found a few of the children of William and Dinah BOWLES whose entry into the Baptism Register of the local parish read the same as this entry for Lucy BOWLES. I am just giving hers as an example:
Lucy daughter of William BOWLES Esq., and Dinah his wife was privatily baptized Oct. 8th and publickly baptized Dec. 20th born Oct 8th 1782.
Now, this is not a blog-post to argue for or against infant baptism. Infant baptism is the norm in Anglicanism, in this case the Church of England. In those days (1780s) so often children died before reaching adulthood and confirmation or what we might call today ‘believers’ baptism’, that parents would have their children baptised as soon as possible. Private Baptism does occurs when a child is sickly and could die before the parents could bring the child to baptism in the church. Lucy was at least the third child to be baptised privately on her day of birth and a couple of months later ‘Publickly’. I wonder why?
I have thought of a few reasons.
- The entry in the baptism register does not show a hand of a hugely educated person. Lucy’s entry is one of the neater ones. Was the local vicar a poorly educated cleric who did not have enough theology to know that one cannot be baptised twice?
- The BOWLES family lived in the local ‘big house’, Heale House. Was the ‘living’ owned by William BOWLES and so the poor cleric did whatever he was asked to do by William? Was William the squire and so able to throw his weight around.
- Did the cleric just misuse the term ‘publikly baptised’ to mean ‘welcomed into the church’?
- Perhaps this was a common feature – a two-fold baptism months apart – at that time?
- Was William BOWLES away? He was a Royal Navy officer and might have been ‘at sea’ with an unknown return date so Dinah BOWLES went ahead and had a baptism on the day of birth and then a public baptism (if the child survived) when the child’s father had returned.
So many possible. Which reason do you like? Do you have any further suggestions? Add a comment or email me via “Contact”
