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City & Village Tours: 0845 812 5000 info@cityandvillagetours.com
Eighteenth century London was a swirling mass
of contrasts. A rowdy gin-swilling public rubbed
shoulders with gentlefolk keen to do good work.
The sight of dead and dying babies abandoned on
the streets horrified Captain Thomas Coram. In 1739
he established the Foundling Hospital, which looked
after more than 27,000 children until its closure in
1953. In perhaps the earliest example of celebrity
fundraising William Hogarth and Frederic Handel
laboured for the benefit of the Foundlings leaving
behind a remarkable art and music collection, which
is today shown in the elegant Rococo rooms of the
museum.
Poverty stricken mothers would leave their babies
with an identifying token as simple as an acorn or
feather to enable them to retrieve their children
should their circumstances improve. They rarely did
in those harsh times and very few children were ever
reclaimed. Until 19 May 2013 a special exhibition
at the museum
Fate
, Hope & Charity will tell the
hidden stories of the tokens left by mothers with
their babies at the Foundling Hospital between 1741
and 1760. Hundreds of these tokens including coins,
jewellery, buttons, poems, playing cards and a simple
nut were removed from the Foundling Hospital’s
admission records in the1860s, severing links with
their history.
Now, over 250 years later, Fate, Hope & Charity
(which is the Museum’s name for their exhibition and
not our tour name misspelt!) reunites the tokens with
the foundlings to whom they belonged, bringing to
light untold stories that are testaments to the grief of
separation and the timeless bond between a mother
and child. Each heart-wrenching story offers a
glimpse into the lives of ordinary women in the
eighteenth century. The accounts reveal fascinating
information about the tokens themselves as well as
the circumstances surrounding the mother’s decision
to give up her baby and the moving stories of the
individual foundlings to whom the tokens belonged.
Selected stories will be told through their tokens,
together with art works and artefacts from the period.
Bring a hankie.
We’ll stay on site where you can buy tea before
returning to the coach to head home at 4-45pm.
Walking is kept to a comfortable minimum on
this day to enable maximum participation.
On our new Olympic running track walking guide
where each circuit of the running track represents
400 metres (more or less 400 yards) this full day
tour rates as 3.
Available Tuesdays to Sundays throughout the
year and ideal for the colder months. The Fate,
Hope & Charity exhibition runs until 19 May 2013
and is included in house entry.
At weekends when the Salvation Army Cafe is
closed we start the day at St. Paul’s Crypt Café.
Price: Adults & Seniors: £17.50
Coach Mileage: 10
Thomas Coram