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CHAPTER XXVII.

THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL AND NEIGHBOURHOOD.

"The helpless young that kiss no mother's hand

She gives in public families to live,

A sight to gladden Heaven."--Thomson.

Establishment of the Hospital by Captain Coram in Hatton Garden-Its Removal to Lamb's Conduit Fields-Parliamentary Grant to the Hospital -Wholesale Admission of Children-Tokens for the Identification of Children deposited in the Hospital-Withdrawal of the Parliamentary Grant-Rules and Regulations-Form of Petition for the Admission of Children-Baptism of the Infants-Wet-nurses-Education of the Children-Expenditure of the Establishment-Extracts from the Report of the Royal Commission-Origin of the Royal Academy of ArtsHogarth's Liberality to the Institution-His "March of the Guards to Finchley Common"-The Picture Gallery-The Chapel-Handel's Benefactions to the Hospital-Lamb's Conduit Fields-Biographical Notice of Captain Coram-Hunter Street-A Domestic Episode in High Life-Tonbridge Chapel-The British College of Health.

to it, "in order that they may be made good servants, or, when qualified, be disposed of to the sea or land services of His Majesty the King."

The governors first opened a house for "foundlings" in Hatton Garden, in 1740-1; any person bringing a child, rang the bell at the inner door, and waited to hear if the infant was returned from disease or at once received; no questions whatever were to be asked as to the parentage of the child, or whence it was brought; and when the full number of children had been taken in, a notice of "The house is full" was affixed over the door. Often, we are told, there were 100 children offered, when only twenty could be admitted; riots ensued, and thenceforth the mothers balloted for the admission of their little ones by drawing balls out of a bag.

THIS quaint and dull old-fashioned looking build- | hospital for all helpless children as may be brought ing, which reminds us of the early days of the last century, stands on the north side of Guilford Street, and forms part of the south-eastern boundary of the parish of St. Pancras. It is constructed of brick, with stone dressings, and consists mainly of a centre and wings, with a large open space before it for the exercise of the children, and extensive gardens at the back. These gardens, including the court in front, which is laid down in turf, cover some acres. The hospital was first established by royal charter, granted in 1739 to Thomas Coram (master of a trading vessel), for the reception, maintenance, and education of exposed and deserted young children, after the example of similar institutions in France, Holland, and other Christian countries. The first intention of Captain Coram, however, was modified after his death, because it was feared that the hospital would prove in practice only an encouragement of vice, if illegitimate children were admitted as long as there was room, without any restriction; and the restrictions imposed so far diminished the applications, that in a few cases the doors were thrown open for the reception of some legitimate children of soldiers.

In the petition which Coram makes for a charter, backed by "a memorial signed by twenty-one ladies of quality and distinction," he recites that, "no expedient has been found out for preventing the frequent murders of poor infants at their birth, or for suppressing the custom of exposing them to perish in the streets, or putting them out to nurses" (ie., persons trading in the same manner as the baby-farmers of more recent times), "who, undertaking to bring them up for small sums, suffered them to starve, or, if permitted to live, either turned them out to beg or steal, or hired them out to persons, by whom they were trained up in that way of living, and sometimes blinded or maimed, in order to move pity, and thereby become fitter instruments of gain to their employers." In order to redress this shameful grievance, the memorialists express their willingness to erect and support a

It was not until some years after the granting of the charter that the governors thought of building the present hospital. Fresh air is as necessary for children as for plants; and so the governors, wandering round the then suburbs in search of some healthy spot whereunto they could transfer their tender "nurslings," found it in the balmy meads of Lamb's Conduit Fields, then far away out in the green pastures, five minutes' walk from Holborn. The governors bought fifty-five acres of these fields from the Earl of Salisbury, for £5,500; in fact, the governors bought the whole estate, not because they required it, but because the earl, its owner, would not sell any fractional part of it. As London increased, the city approached this property; and in course of time a considerable part of the estate-indeed, all that was not actually absorbed in the hospital and its contiguous grounds-became covered with squares and streets of houses, the ground-rents producing an annual income equal to the purchase-money. The new building was at once commenced, the west wing being completed first, the east wing afterwards; the chapel, connecting the two, was finished last. The edifice was built from the designs of Jacobson.

Foundling Hospital.]

TOKENS FOR THE IDENTIFICATION OF INFANTS.

357

The children, 600 in number, were removed hither that they had not been fairly dealt with; and a in 1754, when the expenses of the establishment person was actually tried for infanticide, and would amounted to something very considerably above have been hung, were it not that he was able the income. The governors, nevertheless, who to prove that the crime was committed by the had long been desirous of making it a Foundling carrier. In order to secure the parents against Hospital on the largest scale, found in the known any such suspicion, in 1757 a notice was issued favourable inclinations of the king towards them by the governors to the effect, that all persons an excellent opportunity for pushing their scheme. bringing children should leave some token by London was not then a sufficient field for their which, in case any certificate should be wanted, exertions, and they accordingly applied to Parlia- it might be found out whether such child had been ment, who voted them £10,000, and sanctioned taken into the hospital or not. From that date all the general admission of children, the establishment the children received had some token attached to of county hospitals, &c. their person, and in course of time a goodly collection of these was accumulated. Dr. Wynter, in an article on this subject in the Shilling Magazine, enumerates several of these tokens, which are still preserved in the hospital. Here are a few of them :-" Coins of an ancient date seem to have been the favourite articles used for this purpose, but there are many things of a more curious nature. A playing card-the ace of hearts-with a dolorous piece of verse written upon it; a ring with two hearts in garnets, broken in half, and then tied together; three or four padlocks, intended,. we suppose, as emblems of security; a nut; an ivory fish; an anchor; a gold locket; a lottery ticket. Sometimes a piece of brass, either in the shape of a heart or a crescent moon, was used as a distinguishing mark, generally engraved with some little verse or legend. Thus one has these words upon it, 'In amore hæc sunt vitia,' another has this bit of doggerel :— "You have my heart;

A basket was hung at the gate of the hospital in London in which the children were deposited, the persons who brought them ringing a bell to give notice to the officers in attendance. In order to forward the "little innocents" up from the country, a branch of the carrying trade was established, and babies arrived in London in increasing numbers from the most distant parts of the country. Large prices were, in some instances, paid for their conveyance, a fact which more than hints at the position of the parents; and as the carriage was prepaid, there was a strong inducement on the part of the carriers to get rid of their burthens on the way. Many of the infants were drowned; all of them were neglected, and that, in the large majority of cases, was equal to their death. It was publicly asserted in the House of Commons that one man, having the charge of five infants in baskets-they appeared to have been packed like so many sucking-pigs-and happening to get drunk on his journey, lay asleep all night on a common, and in the morning three out of the five were found dead. Many other instances of negligence on the part of carriers, resulting in the death of infants entrusted to them for carriage to London, are on record. Even the clothing in which the children were dressed was often stolen on the way, and the babes were deposited in the basket just as they were born. It is reported that a foundling who lived to become a worthy banker in the north of England, but who was received into the hospital at this time, being in after life anxious to make some inquiry into his origin, applied at the hospital, when all the information he could obtain from this source was that it appeared on the books of the establishment that he was put into the basket at the gate naked.

Though we must part.'

Again, a third has engraved upon it a hand holding a heart. Whilst we were musing over these curious mementoes of the past, the obliging secretary of the hospital brought us a large book, evidently bulged out with enclosures between its leaves: this proved to be a still more curious recollection of the past, as it enclosed little pieces of work, or some article of dress worked by the mother as a token, with some appeal for kind treatment attached. In many cases the token was a finely-worked cap, quaintly fashioned in the mode of the time; sometimes it was a fine piece of lace. We remarked a bookmarker worked in beads, with the words, Cruel separation; and again, a fine piece of ribbon, which the mother had evidently taken from her own person. All of these tokens in the book On the first day of this general reception of indicated that the maternal parents were of the infants, June 2nd, 1756, no less than 117 children better class-many of them that they were of the were deposited in the basket. The easy manner best class." Now these tokens are no longer in which the children were thus disposed of led wanted. The letters of the alphabet and figures naturally to suspicion, on the part of neighbours, are prosaically made to supply their place.

Foundling Hospital.]

BAPTISM OF THE FOUNDLINGS.

359

poor creature sometimes sacrifices not only her own accounts in the handwriting of the great painter, life, but also that of the unhappy child.

Immediately the infant is received into the house, it is baptised. Of old, contributions were laid upon every name illustrious in the arts and sciences. When these were exhausted, all our naval heroes were pressed into the service; then our famous poets once more-in name, at least walked the earth. The Miltons, Drydens, and Shakespeares that flourished within the walls of the Foundling in the last century must have made it a perfect Walhalla. Let no man flatter himself that he is descended from our famous bards upon the strength of a mere name, however uncommon, lest some spiteful genealogist should run him to earth at the end of Lamb's Conduit Street.

in which he shows that the interest he took in the charity was of the most intimate kind; that he not only enriched it with the gifts of his pencil, as we shall presently show, but also with his tender solicitude for the foundlings who could make him no return for the care with which he watched over them. The foster-children, as a rule, are very well taken care of; a large per-centage, indeed, surviving the maladies of childhood, which they certainly would not have done, under the peculiar circumstances of their birth, inside the walls of the asylum.

"Though mothers may abandon their children to the tender mercies of a public company," says a writer in Chambers's Journal, 66 they cannot do so without pain. The court-room of the Foundling has probably witnessed as painful scenes as any chamber in Great Britain; and again, when the children, at five years old, are brought up to London, and separated from their foster-mothers, these scenes are renewed. Even the foster-fathers are sometimes found to be greatly affected by the parting, while the grief of their wives is excessive; and the children themselves so pine after their supposed parents, that they are humoured by holidays and treats for a day or two after their arrival, in order to mitigate the change. In very many cases the solicitude of the foster-mothers does not cease with their charge of the little ones, as they frequently call to inquire after them, and they, in return, look upon them as their parents."

In the Gentleman's Magazine, under date 29th March, 1741, occurs this entry: "The orphans received into the hospital were baptised there, some nobility of the first rank standing godfathers and godmothers. The first male was named Thomas Coram, and the first female Eunice Coram, after the first founder of that charity and his wife. The most robust boys, being designed for the seaservice, were named Drake, Norris, Blake, &c., after our most famous admirals." Thus, when the Foundling was first opened, noble lords and ladies stood sponsors to the little ones, and gave them their own names. As these foundlings grew up, however, more than one laid claim to a more tender relationship than was altogether convenient. Now-a-days, it is thought best to fall back upon the Brown, Jones, and Robinson class of names of The education which the children receive at the ordinary life to be found in the Directory. The Foundling is confined to reading, writing, and governors, however, act in a perfectly impartial arithmetic, but they are also taught part-singing. manner in this respect. A list of names is made At fifteen the boys and girls are apprenticed, the out beforehand, and as the children arrive they are boys to tradesmen, and the girls to private families fitted to them in regular order. As soon as they as domestic servants; and we hear that, as a rule, are baptised they are dispatched into the country, both turn out very well. The governors make a very where wet-nurses have been provided for them. strict inquiry into the characters of those wishing Within a distance of twenty miles, in Kent and to receive them before they are permitted to have Surrey, there are always about 200 of these an apprentice, and they desire to be furnished foundlings at nurse. Every child has its name with regular reports as to the conduct of their wards. sewn up in its frock, and also a distinguishing mark Whilst the term of their apprenticeship lasts, the hung round its neck by a chain, which the nurse governors continue their careful watch over them; is enjoined to see is always in its place. These and when they are out of their time, means are children are regularly inspected by a medical man, afforded the boys of setting out in life as artisans : and the greatest care is taken that due nourishment whilst the girls are, if well behaved, entitled to a is afforded to the babes. When the nurse cannot marriage portion. It will be remembered that do this, a certain amount of milk is required to be Thomas Day, the eccentric author of "Sandford given. The foster-children, whilst at nurse, are and Merton," selected from the Foundling Hospital under the observation of visitors in the neighbour-one of the two girls whom he resolved to bring up hood. When Hogarth lived at Chiswick, he and and educate, in the hope that she would prove his wife took charge of a certain number of these a model wife; but both, it is needless to add, little ones; and it is pleasant to read the faded turned out failures. Even at the termination of

to Sir Hans Sloane. An economical kitchen, | their children's health, but are allowed no further ingeniously fitted up for the institution by Count Rumford, is described at some length in the "Annual Register" for 1798.