Engraved heart captures British foundling project

LONDON – The mother-of-pearl heart engraved with the letters “E+L” lies in the showcase under a letter begging the governors of London’s Foundling Hospital to accept a baby the parents could not afford to raise.

The heart is one of hundreds of tokens left by poverty stricken mothers as the last evidence linking them with their children who would immediately be baptised and renamed and with whom they would in all probability have no further contact. They are part of a unique collection of 18th century art and memorabilia that give a rare insight into English social history at the Foundling Museum that opens permanently to the public this month.”Women did often try to reclaim their children, but the hospital made it very difficult for them.The idea was a clean slate.A completely new start in life,” museum director Rhian Harris said.”Whether it was from poverty or immorality, entering the Foundling Hospital was seen as expunging from the child the stain of the mother’s sin – as well as protecting both from the shame of illegitimacy,” she added.Granted a royal charter in 1739 after 20 years of lobbying by philanthropical businessman Thomas Coram, the Foundling Hospital opened its doors three years later in central London to all children provided they were healthy.Over the next 213 years and in three different incarnations until it finally closed down in 1954, 27 000 abandoned or illegitimate children passed through its doors.A taped interview with one of the children – rebaptised Harold Tarrant when he entered the hospital in February 1912 – notes that he immediately lost his original given name Noel Patrick Brew.It also recalls an idyllic early life on a farm with the foster parents the hospital immediately sent him to as was its practice with babies up to the age of six years.His was a relatively unremarkable choice of new name.Others were rather more arresting.Among a long list on one wall of the exhibition right next to the tokens can be found Francis Drake, Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare and Elizabeth Tudor.It was also not all easy going for the Coram foundlings.”They were very much second class citizens who were being given a second chance,” Harris said.Although initially for all children, the Foundling Hospital changed its entry rules to accept only illegitimate ones after 1801.Coram, a Briton who made a modest fortune as a shipwright in Massachusetts before returning to England in 1705, got the idea after seeing abandoned children dying in the gutters of London.At that time, an estimated 1 000 babies a year were left to die in the streets by parents who in most cases couldn’t afford to feed them.- Nampa-ReutersThey are part of a unique collection of 18th century art and memorabilia that give a rare insight into English social history at the Foundling Museum that opens permanently to the public this month.”Women did often try to reclaim their children, but the hospital made it very difficult for them.The idea was a clean slate.A completely new start in life,” museum director Rhian Harris said.”Whether it was from poverty or immorality, entering the Foundling Hospital was seen as expunging from the child the stain of the mother’s sin – as well as protecting both from the shame of illegitimacy,” she added.Granted a royal charter in 1739 after 20 years of lobbying by philanthropical businessman Thomas Coram, the Foundling Hospital opened its doors three years later in central London to all children provided they were healthy.Over the next 213 years and in three different incarnations until it finally closed down in 1954, 27 000 abandoned or illegitimate children passed through its doors.A taped interview with one of the children – rebaptised Harold Tarrant when he entered the hospital in February 1912 – notes that he immediately lost his original given name Noel Patrick Brew.It also recalls an idyllic early life on a farm with the foster parents the hospital immediately sent him to as was its practice with babies up to the age of six years.His was a relatively unremarkable choice of new name.Others were rather more arresting.Among a long list on one wall of the exhibition right next to the tokens can be found Francis Drake, Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare and Elizabeth Tudor.It was also not all easy going for the Coram foundlings.”They were very much second class citizens who were being given a second chance,” Harris said.Although initially for all children, the Foundling Hospital changed its entry rules to accept only illegitimate ones after 1801.Coram, a Briton who made a modest fortune as a shipwright in Massachusetts before returning to England in 1705, got the idea after seeing abandoned children dying in the gutters of London.At that time, an estimated 1 000 babies a year were left to die in the streets by parents who in most cases couldn’t afford to feed them.- Nampa-Reuters