Private vs Public Baptism

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Profile	Posted by	Options	Post Date
Member Since: December 2005 Posts: 0 Send Message	Richard	Report	22 Apr 2007 00:09
Member Since: December 2005 Posts: 0 Send Message	Does anyone know why some children appear in parish registers as being baptised twice, once privately and then later publicly? What's the difference? And why was this thought necessary? Rich :-)
Member Since: November 2003 Posts: 28 261 Send Message	KathleenBell	Report	22 Apr 2007 00:14
	Private baptisms were often carried out if the child was ill and it was thought they might not survive. They were then usually 'received into the church' at the second ceremony. Nurses often baptise children in hospital if they don't think there is time to get a vicar or priest ther in time. Kath. x
Member Since: February 2004 Posts: 6 440 Send Message	An Olde Crone	Report	22 Apr 2007 00:17
	Posh people often had their children routinely privately baptised anyway, so that the hoi polloi weren't gawking at the newly delivered mum - who would have been thought much too delicate to get out of bed for six weeks anyway. OC
Member Since: December 2005 Posts: 0 Send Message	Richard	Report	22 Apr 2007 00:35
Member Since: December 2005 Posts: 0 Send Message	OK - thanks for that. One set of my gtx5 grandparents had all four of their kids privately baptised and then had it done in public a month or so later in the 1780s. I'd not come across it before, until recently anyway.