The Foundling Hospital, London, was founded in 1739 by the philanthropic sea captain Thomas Coram. It was established for the "education and maintenance of exposed and deserted young children."
The first children were admitted to the Foundling Hospital on March 25, 1741, into a temporary house located in Hatton Garden. In September 1742, the stone of a new Hospital was laid in the area known as Bloomsbury Fields, lying north of Great Ormond Street and west of Gray's Inn Lane. The Hospital was designed by Theodore Jacobsen as a plain brick building with two wings and a chapel, built around an open courtyard. The western wing was finished in October 1745. On 1 May 1750 George Frederick Handel, a patron of the Hospital, directed a performance of the oratorioMessiah to mark the presentation of the organ to the chapel. An eastern wing was added in 1752 "in order that the girls might be kept separate from the boys."
The new Hospital was described as "the most imposing single monument erected by eighteenth century benevolence" and became London's most popular charity.
William Hogarth, who was childless, had a long association with the Hospital and was a founding Governor. He designed the children's uniforms and the Coat of Arms, and he and his wife Jane fostered foundling children. Hogarth also decided to set up an art exhibition in the court room of the new buildings, encouraging other artists to produce work for the Hospital. Indeed, several contemporary English artists decorated the walls of the hospital with their works.
References
R.H. Nichols and F A. Wray, The History of the Foundling Hospital (London: Oxford University Press, 1935).
Enlightened Self-interest: The Foundling Hospital and Hogarth, exh. cat., Thomas Coram Foundation for Children, London 1997.
At the present time many foundling asylums give shelter to orphans, but originally their activity was confined almost entirely to the rescue and care of foundlings in the strict sense, that is, infants who had been deliberately abandoned by their natural protectors.
Innocent III caused one to be erected in 1198 at Rome in connexion with the hospital of the Holy Ghost.
Nevertheless, the foundling asylum should endeavour to ascertain the identity of the parents, to induce the mothers to act as nurses to their infants in the institution, and to keep alive the natural bond between child and parent.
The FoundlingHospital owes its foundation to the exertions and benevolence of Mr.
FOUNDLINGHOSPITAL (THE), GUILDFORD STREET was founded in 1739, by Captain Thomas Coram, as "an hospital for exposed and deserted children." The ground was bought of the Earl of Salisbury for 7000l., and the Hospital built by Theodore Jacobson, (d.1772), architect of the Royal Hospital at Gosport.
Foundling Hospital—On a very different principle from that of the Enfans Trouves in Paris and from the great establishments of a similar nature in St. Petersburg and Vienna, is the admirable institution founded in 1739 by gentle-hearted Captain Thomas Coram.
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