The Arts Society Welwyn Garden visit to the Foundling Museum

On 6th September some of our members visited the Foundling Museum in Bloomsbury. Our guide started our tour outside in front of a statue of Thomas Coram holding the Royal Charter from George ll giving him permission to found the hospital in 1739. We learnt that it had taken a full seventeen years of campaigning to achieve his dearly held wish to establish a home for destitute children.

Moving inside we saw the collection on the ground floor; the most moving and poignant items being  tokens the mothers left to identify their babies.

The building housing the museum only dates from the 1930s but incorporates many architectural features in the rooms on the first floor taken from the original hospital demolished in the early twentieth century.

Handel and Hogarth were both great benefactors, giving generously to the hospital and encouraging others to do likewise. Our guide talked with great enthusiasm about both men and their works. It is a fascinating and important story, reminding us that the lives of ordinary women and children are as great a part of history as those of the wealthy and privileged.