Captain Coram's Foundling Hospital was opened in London in 1741 for 'the maintenance and education of exposed and deserted young children'. Hogarth was a governor of the hospital - he donated several pictures, including his portrait of Coram - as was Handel, whose famous performances of his oratorio Messiah were given there from 1750 to raise funds. John Brownlow (1800-73), himself a foundling, became secretary of the hospital from 1849 until his retirement. He introduced improvements to the children's education and was a staunch defender of the hospital, refuting criticisms often levelled in the nineteenth century that taking in illegitimate children simply encouraged neglect. This brief account, building on his 1847 Memoranda, or, Chronicles of the Foundling Hospital (also reissued in this series), covers Coram, early supporters, the institution's paintings - which formed the first public art gallery in London - and the care of the foundlings.

In 1739, the London Foundling Hospital opened its doors to take in the abandoned children of the city. It was the culmination of seventeen years of campaigning by Captain Thomas Coram, driven by his horror at seeing children die in the streets. He was supported in his endeavours by a royal charter and by William Hogarth and George Frideric Handel. The Hospital would continue as both home and school for over 215 years, raising thousands of children until they could be apprenticed out. London's Forgotten Children is a fascinating history of the first children's charity, charting the rise of this incredible institution and examining the attitude towards illegitimate children over the years. The story comes alive with the voices of children who grew up in the Hospital, and the concluding, fully updated, account of today's children's charity Coram is an ongoing testament to the vision of its founder.

Describes the life and times of Thomas Coram and his goal of establishing a safe refuge for abandoned babies in the early 1700s.

"At the Foundling Hospital considers the foundling soul: its need to be adopted, and its need to be adaptive. These poems reimagine identity on the scale of one life or of human history: from 'the emanation of a dead star still alive' to the 'pinhole iris of your mortal eye'"--Amazon.com.

The fascinating story of what happened to the orphaned and abandoned children of the London Foundling Hospital, and the consequences of Georgian philanthropy. From serving Britain's growing global empire in the Royal Navy, to the suffering of child workers in the Industrial Revolution, the Foundling Hospital was no simple act of charity.

Sex, gender, charity and class in Victorian Britain.

This book analyzes how poor eighteenth-century London women coped when they found themselves pregnant, their survival networks and the consequences of bearing an illegitimate child. It does so by exploring the encounters between poor women and the parish as well as London's lying-in hospitals and the Foundling Hospital. It suggests that unmarried mothers did not constitute a deviant minority within London's plebeian community. In fact, many could expect to find compassion rather than ostracism a response to their plight. All poor mothers, left without the support of their child's father, shared similar strategies of survival and economies of makeshift.