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City & Village Tours: 0845 812 5000 info@cityandvillagetours.com
Faith, Hope & Charity
Between 1837 and 1839, Dickens lived next to the
Foundling Hospital estate, in 48 Doughty Street, now
the Charles Dickens Museum. Dickens supported the
Hospital both financially and through his writing,
renting a pew in its Chapel and referring to the
Hospital in several stories and novels. Dickens & the
Foundlings is a fascinating new display at the Museum
that explores the relationship between Charles Dickens
and the Foundling Hospital. Six contributors, including
actress Gillian Anderson (who recently portrayed
Dickens’ Miss Haversham in a BBC adaptation of
Great Expectations), the writer Armando Iannucci
and journalist Jon Snow, have selected objects from
the Charles Dickens Museum for display. These very
personal selections highlight Dickens’ philanthropy,
his relationship to the Foundling Hospital and his
continuing social relevance. Each display is
accompanied by a text written by the selector,
outlining the reasons behind their choice.
We stay at the Museum to buy tea before heading for
home at 4-45pm.
Available Tuesdays to Sundays throughout the year.
Walking is kept to a minimum to enable maximum
participation.
Adults & Seniors: £15.50
This price is valid for all trips taking place on or
before 31st March 2013. The Dickens exhibition runs
until 31 December 2012.
At weekends we start at the St . Paul’s Crypt Cafe.
The good works and extraordinary life of Baroness
Burdett Coutts (right) the “richest heiress in England”
feature on our Faith Hope & Charity Tour, which
traces the history of philanthropy. She was great
friends with Charles Dickens seeking his advice and
working with him on a home for fallen women.
A condition of her inheritance was that she never
marry despite which she had many suitors. She
proposed to the Duke of Wellington, who was 40 years
her senior, but was turned down and eventually at the
age of 67 married a man 40 years her junior. What a
woman! When she died she was admitted to that great
Valhalla of the good - Westminster Abbey.
On the Faith, Hope & Charity tour you meet the Guide
in the City of London at 10-30am to buy morning
refreshments at the beautiful café in the Salvation
Army International Headquarters. The day begins on
foot for a short walk in the lanes and yards between
the river and St. Paul’s. From the great monastic
houses, such as the London Blackfriars, came the
terms pittance and dole. The guilds and livery
companies emerged as burial and benefit societies
and went on to found almshouses for aged craftsmen
long before state provision was made for the elderly.
The City, the East End and the West End each
contribute to our story, so next by coach to hear of a
panoply of philanthropists including George Peabody,
Dr. Barnardo, Fred Charrington and General Booth.
Charitable work was a rare way for middle and upper
class women, especially in the nineteenth century, to
undertake useful and challenging work so in addition
to Baroness Burdett-Coutts we also learn about Clara
Grant’s Farthing Bundles and the prison work of the
Quaker Elizabeth Fry
.
For lunch we set down by Lambs Conduit Street in
Bloomsbury where there is a good choice of pubs
and cafés for lunch. 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.
Poverty stricken mothers would leave their babies with
a simple identifying token - an acorn or feather hoping
to collect them when their lives improved. They rarely
did. Very few children were ever reclaimed. 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. Until 31 December
2012 there is a special exhibition here about the
hospitals neighbour and supporter Charles Dickens.