The archives of London’s famous Foundling Hospital are now free to search online.
Almost 100,000 pages of records, containing details of over 20,000 children, have been made available.
The Hospital was founded in 1739 by sea captain Thomas Coram to provide a home for the capital’s many unwanted children, particularly children born to unmarried mothers.
At the time, the name ‘hospital’ meant any place that provided ‘hospitality’, or shelter. Rather than being a hospital in the modern sense, it was a children’s home, where children received care and education before leaving to enter into an apprenticeship at about the age of fourteen. The education was progressive by the standards of the day – both boys and girls were taught to read, girls were later taught to write. The children were also taught music.
The digitised records fall into the following categories:
- Petitions from mothers and others: 115 volumes, 1762-1881
- Billet Books containing tokens: 203 volumes, 1741-1814
- Admission and baptism registers: 8 volumes, 1741-1885
- Apprenticeship registers: 4 volumes, 1751-1898
- Registers of country nurses and inspectors: 6 volumes, 1749-1812
- Branch Hospital registers: 5 volumes, 1757-1772
- Records claiming children: 21 volumes, 1758-1796
- Committee Minutes: 43 volumes, 1739-1895
