Gillian Pugh - London’s Forgotten Children: Thomas Coram And The Foundling Hospital

THOMAS CORAM AND
THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL

THOMAS CORAM AND
THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL

GILLIAN PUGH

Cover illustration: Photograph from How They Were Taught published by Blackwell Publishing

First published in 2007

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2012

All rights reserved

Gillian Pugh 2007, 2012

The right of Gillian Pugh, to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 8020 6

MOBI ISBN 978 0 7524 8019 0

Original typesetting by The History Press

My interest in writing this book began well before I joined the Thomas Coram Foundation for Children as it was then called as chief executive in 1997. I had long been interested in both the childrens charity and its current work and past history, and in the historic picture collection for which, when I joined the organisation, I was also responsible.

My knowledge and understanding of the fascinating history of the organisation grew during the eight years at Coram, but it was not until I retired that I had time to do the further research that was required to put this book together. It has been a fascinating journey.

Many people have helped me in my quest to tell, for the first time, the history of the Foundling Hospital from the 1730s to the present day. I have drawn heavily on a number of key sources, particularly Ruth McClures Corams Children: the London Foundling Hospital in the Eighteenth Century; Gillian Wagners Thomas Coram, Gent, two books by my predecessors as senior officers of the organisation John Brownlows Memoranda, or Chronicle of the Foundling Hospital published in 1847 and R.H Nichols and F.A Wrays detailed History of the Foundling Hospital published in 1935 and a selection from the huge number of documents (weighing an estimated 8 tonnes) in the London Metropolitan Archives.

One of the great pleasures of my time at Coram was meeting so many former pupils and members of the Old Coram Association. I am indebted to those who have shared their memories with me and with Virginia Makins, and to those who were also interviewed by Chris Oliver and Peter Aggleton for their study Corams Children: growing up in the care of the Foundling Hospital 19001955. I would particularly like to thank Harold Tarrant, John Caldicott, Lydia Carmichael, Mary Bentley and Jocelyn Gamble for their help and for permission to quote from their interviews and writings, Gillian Erskine for permission to quote from her late husband Toms autobiography and the Old Coram Association for permission to quote from Coram News.

Current and former staff and governors of Coram Family and colleagues in the Foundling Museum have been generous with the information they have shared with me, and many have commented on earlier drafts of this book. A particular thank you to William Barnes, Dorothy Baulch, Peter Brown, Steve Hudd, Jeanne Kaniuk, Colin Masters, Val Molloy, Gordon Parker, Wendy Rose, Lonica Vanclay and Lorna Zumpe and to honorary archivists John Orr and Gillian Clark. Also to Janet Snook who worked in the Thomas Coram childrens centre in the 1970s, to Bernadette Duffy who is the head of centre today, and to Sandy Wynn who runs Corams Fields.

Thank you also to Jenny Bourne Taylor, Professor of English at Sussex University for sharing with me her material relating to Charles Dickens and John Brownlow in the nineteenth century; to Virginia Makins who interviewed many former pupils and gave me access to her notes; and to Nicola Hilliard at the National Childrens Bureau for allowing me to follow up much of the historical material through the NCB library.

For permission to use photographs and help in finding and reproducing them, further thanks are due. To Coram Family for permission to reproduce the following which are in the care of the Foundling Museum and to Alison Duke from the Foundling Museum for her help in locating the images: portrait of Captain Thomas Coram and Moses Brought Before Pharoahs Daughter by Hogarth; portrait of Captain Thomas Coram by Nebot; the engraving of the Foundling Hospital; Admission of children to the Hospital by ballot by Wale; The Foundling Hospital chapel and Girls dining room by Sanders; A Foundling Boy and A Foundling Girl by Copping; The Foundling Hospital by Wilson; photograph of the marble chimney by Rysbrack; the bust of Handel by Roubiliac; The Finding of the Infant Moses in the Bulrushes by Hayman; The Foundling Restored to its Mother and The Christening by Brownlow King; Girls in the Chapel by Anderson; and visitors watching children eat Sunday lunch from the Illustrated London News.

The March of the Guards to Finchley by Hogarth and the tokens are owned by the Foundling Museum; the photograph of the Court Room is by James Robinson; the painting of the Foundling Museum is by Ann Usborne and is reproduced by permission of Persephone Books.

The photographs of Corams Fields are reproduced with permission of Sandy Wynn.

All other photographs are reproduced with the permission of Coram Family, with a particular thank you to Jocelyn Gamble for her help in reproducing photographs from the archives.

And finally thank you to Kate Adie for her interest in the work of the Foundling Hospital and the children who grew up in it, and for her Foreword to this book.

Gillian Pugh,

November 2006

1 Heading to the subscription roll designed by William Hogarth. Coram Family.

2 Captain Thomas Coram by B. Nebot, 1741. Coram Family in the care of the Foundling Museum.

3 Statue of Thomas Coram outside the Foundling Museum and Coram Family. Coram Family in the care of the Foundling Museum.

4 Detail from a map of London by John Rocque, 1746. The site of the Foundling Hospital was north of the northern edge of London. Coram Family.

5 Admission of children to the Hospital by ballot by Samuel Wale, 1749. Coram Family in the care of the Foundling Museum.

6 The Foundling Hospital chapel looking west by John Sanders, 1773. Coram Family in the care of the Foundling Museum.

7 Boys dining room, photographed in the early 1900s. Coram Family.

8 Girls dining room by John Sanders, 1773, showing the Hogarth portrait of Thomas Coram hanging to the right of the picture. Coram Family in the care of the Foundling Museum.

9 Boys dormitory, west wing, photographed in the early 1900s. Coram Family.