AN APOLOGY for the pain, trauma, and stigma experienced by women who gave birth in Church of England mother-and-baby homes in the mid-20th century was issued by the Archbishop of Canterbury on Thursday.
“We have heard first-hand the accounts of mothers who were separated from their babies in circumstances where they had very few meaningful choices,” she said. “Today, we say to each of you: the shame you were made to feel was wrong. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Rather, we are deeply ashamed that this happened to people in the care of Christian communities.”
Archbishop Mullally’s apology was issued alongside a new report from the Archbishops’ Council: Historical Adoption Practices: Research into Church of England affiliated mother and baby homes 1949-1976. It is estimated that tens of thousands of mothers and babies resided in about 200 homes in this period. Some homes were run directly by dioceses. Others were run by independent or semi-independent committees, with different levels of church oversight.
A parliamentary report published in 2022 estimated that 185,000 children born in England and Wales to unmarried mothers were put up for adoption during the same period.
Among the documents quoted in the report — the result of archival research at Lambeth Palace library — is The Chaplain in Moral Welfare Homes, guidance published by the Church’s Moral Welfare Council (MWC) in 1951. While emphasising the importance of the bond between a mother and child, and that adoption should not be the default option, it suggested that “some [mothers] are strangers to truth and live in an unreal world of their own imagination . . . [and] some are hardened by the effects of promiscuity.”
It describes the Christian witness of chaplains as requiring “much patience . . . with those who appear dull, stupid and shallow. . . few of the girls are capable of sustained thinking or of following an argument.” Some mothers, it says, “have too little sense of failure”.
The Church’s guidance, attitudes, and practices often reflected “attitudes prevalent at the time”, the research report said. “Providers of mother and baby homes during this period were responding to a culture of shame, stigma and secrecy which surrounded unmarried mothers and their children. . . Patriarchal ideas about female sexual purity and family identity are clear in the language often used about unmarried mothers at the time — ‘fallen’, ‘ruined’ — and in the labelling of their children as ‘bastards’.”
In her apology, issued on behalf of the Church, Archbishop Mullally said: “We are profoundly sorry for the pain, trauma and stigma experienced — and still carried — by many people because of historical adoption practices in homes affiliated to the Church of England.”
The practices revealed in the report “took place in a society that often valued secrecy and respectability over compassion and care”, she said. “The Church of England was part of that society and helped to sustain those attitudes.”
Adoption during the period studied had to be consensual — as set out in the Adoption Act 1949 — and not the result of undue pressure. The guidance issued by the MWC was “rooted in a desire to keep mothers and their babies together”, the report said.
The 1951 guidance for chaplains suggested that “the material advantages of an adopted home do not necessarily outweigh the psychological and emotional disadvantages of separating a mother and child”. The chaplain could “do much to strengthen the natural bond between the mother and her child”, it said. “The whole work of the home is designed for the same end.”
Source material and personal testimonies suggested, however, that “this aspiration was not always upheld, and in some cases was disregarded.”
The factors behind a growing number of adoptions in the 1950s included a rise in the number of families that wished to adopt. Among the examples of “dehumanising” language uncovered in the report is correspondence from the Church Assembly’s Board for Social Responsibility in 1965, which referred to “the need for some sort of central ‘clearing house’ where supply and demand could meet”.
In the 1970s, homes were described as places “from which the adoption agencies get their raw material”. Some mothers were described as “dim, feckless, and inadequate”.
Among the personal accounts provided were descriptions of people categorised or treated differently because of physical disability or the colour of their skin, “including being considered less likely to be adopted or placed into long-term institutional care”.
Poor conditions remained “an important part of the collective memory of women within the homes”, the report said. Personal testimonies related that expectant mothers were expected to undertake manual tasks.
The lack of housing provided by the State for mother and child was, the report said, “a crucial factor in adoptions”. Documents painted a picture of homes with “overworked, poorly paid, and under-resourced” staff and inadequate funding.
The authors of the 24-page report say that records are incomplete and that their work offers a “mixed, partial, yet illuminating picture”. It is presented, they write, “with a deep sense of sorrow for the reports of harsh treatment of mothers during this period and with hope that it will be of service to the women and children whose lives were affected by what happened to them in mother and baby homes”.
The publication of the report was accompanied by prayers for public use.
The Archbishop’s apology was issued in the wake of a series of media investigations exposing the conditions of mother and baby homes run by the Church. On Sunday, the BBC published the results of its latest investigation of St Monica’s Maternity Home, Kendal, in Cumbria (News, 24 October 2023).
It described “a brutal physical regime, designed with punishment in mind for their unmarried status . . . There was no fully trained midwife and no pain relief allowed in labour. And alongside hundreds of forced adoptions, there was a pervasive pattern of stillbirths and deaths, described by a leading expert as being on an ‘unprecedented’ scale.”
Documents showed that some babies born in the 1950s and 1960s died from treatable conditions, while some suffered catastrophic head injuries in birth. The diocese of Carlisle has issued “heartfelt” apologies.
In January 2025, the diocese of Winchester issued an appeal for information concerning the Winchester Diocesan Maternity Home, which closed in 1966, followed an ITV investigation that found that almost 200 babies had been buried in unmarked graves across England, amid allegations of neglect and poor treatment at Church-run homes.
The Archbishop’s apology follows that of other church leaders, including the trustees of the Methodist Church (News, 17 April 2025) and, in 2016, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, when he was Archbishop of Westminster.
Asked this week whether mothers and their children born in C of E maternity homes would be eligible for the Redress Scheme, a Church House spokesman said: “In some circumstances, experiences such as coercive adoption may fall within scope. . . We would encourage anyone who believes they may be eligible to come forward and speak to the scheme’s independent administrators.”