Theos-Talk Archives (July 2007 Message tt00298)

Pablo,

You wrote concerning C.W. Leadbeater:

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There is a birth cetificate indicating 1854 as his year of birth. In
his passport, however, the date was 1847. And by that time the
registers were not at all well kept in many parts of the world.
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I am not at all certain as to the relevance of your statement which 
reads:  "And by that time the registers were not at all well kept in 
many parts of the world."

Unless I am overlooking something here, we are NOT talking 
about "registers" in "many parts of the world" but record keeping in
England.  And as far as I know, English records were "well kept."

But I would remind you that we are not talking about JUST ONE record 
that might contain an error but multiple records made at different 
times and by different people.  I give the list below and I ask you 
to review them.

(1) British marriage records indicate that Leadbeater's parents were
married on May 26, 1853.

(2) Leadbeater's own birth record indicates that he was born on
February 16, 1854.

[NOTE: Connecting the facts presented in (1) and (2), one can see
that Leadbeater was born about 9 months after his parents were
married. Not surprising in light of known facts about human
reproduction.]

(3) February 16th 1854 date was given in the English census of 1861.  
[according to http://www.cwlworld.info/html/bio.html ]

(4) February 16th 1854 date was given in the English census of 1871.
[according to http://www.cwlworld.info/html/bio.html ]

(5) Leadbeater's mother gave his age [confirming the 1854 birthdate]
when registering her husband's death.

(6) In the Anglican diocesan records, Leadbeater gave his birth date
[1854] on his application for ordination in the Church of England

(7) In the census return submitted by Leadbeater in 1881, he stated
as Head of the Household that his age was 27 (i.e. born in 1854).

It is possible that one record might contain some kind of error but
to suggest or maintain that 7 SEPARATE records are ALL wrong,
INCLUDING records completed by Leadbeater and his mother, is
certainly not a rational hypothesis.

And in your remark:  "the registers were not at all well kept", I 
assume you are suggesting the possibility of some error creeping in.

But note well that in all these records [excluding record (1) which 
was made before CWL was born] the date is the SAME:  1854.  If 
an "error" was to be found maybe in one of them, we would put that 
down to some clerical error, etc.  But all are the same.  How could 
the SAME "error" creep into all of them?  

Why would Leadbeater's own mother give his age [confirming the 1854 
birthdate] when registering her husband's death?

Why would Leadbeater give his birth date on his application for 
ordination in the Church of England as 1854?

How could these two separate documents by two separate people 
contain the same "errors"?

If you can really "make sense" of all of this by maintaining some 
kind of "error," I would like to know how to do it.

Daniel
http://hpb.cc