"During the period 1837 to 1965 about 5 per cent of births [in England and Wales] were illegitimate." M.D.Herber "Ancestral Trails", Stroud, 1998, p.50.

"Frequent premarital sex seems to have been common, if not the norm, whether on the understanding that marriage would follow or not, and couples were not adverse to making love on the first or second meeting.... Though frowned upon and severely punished in chapels, illegitimacy was rife and probably grudgingly accepted ... 'beneath the respectable facade the world of the senses thrived. Passion flourished among the prudery.' " p. 158 of B.Jones "Banqueting at a moveable feast: Wales 1870-1914", pp.145-178 of G.E.Jones & D.Smith "The people of Wales", Llandysul, 2000.