by Julia Herdman | Mar 31, 2017 | Blog
During the eighteenth century a number of men achieved the status of national hero, the most famous of them being the legendary Captain James Cook (1728-1779), the man who spent his life exploring and mapping; Newfoundland, Australia, the Hawaiian Islands and New Zealand for the British Crown. The eighteenth century was a time when the British Establishment was looking for new types of heroes - heroes for the new age of enlightenment.
Cook was the embodiment of this new type of hero. He was not of them, the Establishment that is, he had achieved his rank on merit. He was not only a military man he was an explorer. A man engaged in the exercise of Empire building. His life was relentlessly hard, away from his family for years on end but he did it without complaint. His death was viewed as a national tragedy and a cautionary tale. After 1779 British Officers would never be so trusting of the indigenous peoples they encountered on their journeys.
During the Seven Years’ War, Cook served in North America as master of Pembroke (1757) In 1758 he took part in the major amphibious assault that captured the Fortress of Louisbourg from the French, after which he participated in the siege of Quebec City and then the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759. He showed a talent for surveying and cartography, and was responsible for mapping much of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River during the siege, thus allowing General Wolfe to make his famous stealth attack on the Plains of Abraham.
In 1766, Admiralty engaged Cook to command a scientific voyage to the Pacific Ocean. The purpose of the voyage was to observe and record the transit of Venus across the Sun for the benefit of Royal Society inquiry into a means of determining longitude. Once the observations were completed, Cook opened his sealed orders and started the second part of his voyage: to search the south Pacific for signs of the much postulated rich southern continent of Terra Australis. He sailed around New Zealand and landed on Australian soil on 19 April 1770, and in doing so his expedition became the first recorded Europeans to have encountered its eastern coastline.
Two years later as the commander of HMS Resolution with his companion ship HMS Adventure he circumnavigated the globe at an extreme southern latitude, becoming one of the first to cross the Antarctic Circle on 17 January 1773.
On his last great voyage Cook was charged with looking for a north-west passage around the American continent. He sailed via Cape Horne and into the Pacific Ocean stopping off at Hawaii and the Sandwich Islands. Cook sailed as far north as Vancouver Island than turned back and was killed in an altercation with the local Hawaiian chief on 14 February 1779.
Picture: The Death of Captain James Cook, Johann Zoffany, circa 1795.
Julia Herdman is a novelist writing about 18th and early 19th century London. Her debut novel Sinclair is about a family of apothecary surgeons working at Guy’s and St Thomas’s Hospitals at the dawn of modern medicine. Available on Amazon - Paperback £10.99 Kindle £2.29
by Julia Herdman | Mar 29, 2017 | Blog
The World’s First Children’s Charity
Poverty in 18th century London was the order of the day for most ordinary people. The 18th-century world was particularly cruel to women and children who failed to live up to 18th-century society’s norms and expectations. Unmarried women with-child were thrown onto the streets as were their newborn babies.
In England, at this time perhaps one in 10 families remained below the ‘breadline’ over the period, increasing to nearly two out of every five families in times of food shortage. There were, of course, other reasons why people fell on hard times.
Poverty and the Poor Law
Charitable ‘relief’ for the needy was administered by local parishes through the provisions of the Poor Law. To qualify for financial assistance the poor were required to prove their right to ‘settlement’ in a particular area. This might include being born, married or having served and completed an apprenticeship there. Paupers deemed not to have any settlement rights were often ‘passed’ on to their home parishes in order to avoid any unnecessary costs.
Though the vast majority of people claiming relief in the 18th century were needy through no fault of their own, certain sections of society nevertheless believed that poverty was caused by the bad habits of the poor: their preference for drinking and gambling, immorality or laziness. To reduce the rising cost of poor relief some people argued that the act of receiving charity itself should be made less attractive and hence less likely to be sought after.
Some London workhouses accommodated well over 700 people. The inmates receiving relief were made to wear special uniforms or badges that signified their degradation. Many people contracted diseases and died within their walls, and were later buried in unmarked mass pauper graves. In the 1750s social investigator, Jonas Hanway discovered that the death rate amongst workhouse children in London was over 90%. Thus the opening of a new workhouse in some areas was occasionally the cause of serious rioting, and many of the poor preferred to starve rather than enter their gloomy confines.
Of course, prostitution was a common alternative to the Workhouse. It has been estimated that 10,000 women were engaged in the trade, in London, in the latter part of the 18th century. Needless to say, the consequences of such a lifestyle were not only unwanted children but also violence, disease, and poverty.
Thomas Coran decided to do something about the poverty and poor health of abandoned children in London who at the time were often left to die on the streets. Thomas Coram was a philanthropist and campaigner. His greatest achievement was the London Foundling Hospital. From 1741 when the first babies were admitted, to 1954 when the last pupil was placed in foster care, the Foundling Hospital cared for and educated around 25,000 children.
Thomas Coran’s Early Life
The Anglo-American Founder of the World’s First Incorporated Charity was born in Lyme Regis, in 1668. He was neither wealthy nor well connected. Aged 11 his father sent him to sea. This meant he never had a formal education.
Thomas Coran’s Life in America
He arrived in Dighton, Massachusetts in 1694. He lived there for ten years. Ardently Anglican, religious differences between Coram and his neighbours soon surfaced. These were played out in the courts where seemingly trivial issues quickly escalated; claims and counter-claims. Sometimes threats turned to violence against Coram. He frequently had to go to the Boston courts to receive a fair hearing at the local magistrates’ court. In Boston, he met and married Eunice Waite, the daughter of an established family originally from England. She was a nonconformist Congregationalist but there is no evidence of any friction over religion between them. Letters show that Eunice and Thomas Coram were happily married for 40 years.
Addressing Poverty - First Charitable Works
Between 1704 and 1712 he plied his trade on merchantmen and became a ship’s captain. In 1712, he obtained a role at Trinity House, Deptford, a private corporation that combined public responsibilities with charitable purposes. The Trinty House charity operated under royal patronage and provided and managed lighthouses and buoys to aid merchant shipping and to save lives at sea.
His interest in the welfare of merchant seamen continued and he developed an interest in supporting abandoned children although we don’t know why. In 1717, he made his first attempt to set up a home for abandoned children in a founding a colony, in what is today, the American State of Maine. With one foot in England and the other in her American colony, Coram was appointed one of the trustees for Georgia colony in 1732 and in 1735 he brought forward a scheme for settling unemployed English artisans in Nova Scotia.
The Foundling Hospital for Abandoned Children
Settled back in England, Coram bought a house in Rotherhithe about 4 miles down the Thames from central London. On his daily journey into town he was appalled by the number of infants he saw left to die in the streets. These poor children were most likely the unwanted result of prostitution, the main source of financial support for unmarried women in London, and the abuse of female domestic servants by their employers and male servants alike. Once again he campaigned for the creation of an institution where abandoned infants and orphans could be cared for. He laboured for 17 years and was finally successful in 1739 when George II gave his project a royal charter.
The first children were admitted to houses in Hatton Gardens in 1741 and the land where the hospital still stands today was purchased. The Foundling Hospital was innovative; it educated both its boys and its girls which was remarkably advanced for the times. The foundation stone of the present hospital was laid on 16 September 1742. In October 1745 the west wing was finished and the children moved into their new and permanent home.
Great interest was excited in the undertaking, especially by London’s artistic community including William Hogarth and George Frederick Handel both of whom made donations to the cause. Sadly, for Coram he fell out with the hospital’s new benefactors, the reasons are unclear, and he was ousted from its Board of Governors in 1742.
The London Foundling Hospital admitted thirty children on its first night. Only healthy children were admitted initially but placing thirty children together inevitably led to the spread of illness. Between 1756 and 1760 the Hospital operated a policy of general reception, during which any child presented at the gates was admitted regardless of health.
After admittance, the children were regularly moved around. Foundlings were re-baptised and put out to nurse, where they remained until the age of five. Between the ages of five and around eleven, the children resided at the Foundling Hospital, and received a formal education before they were apprenticed—although some children were apprenticed at a younger age, others remained at the Hospital until they were older, and some returned to the Hospital when their apprenticeships did not work out. Alongside the education of children, the Hospital took responsibility for the children’s health, both within the hospital and whilst they were out at nurse. Additionally, children with severe disabilities remained at the Foundling Hospital for life and undertook work when they were able to do so.
Poor foundling children were set up for a particular kind of life. They were not graduates, physicians, or engineers. They were housemaids, gardeners, and sailors. They were taught to follow, rather than give, orders. Foundlings were kept ‘in their place’, and that place was in the lower classes of society, to fulfill roles within the economy. Despite this, some foundlings were able to use their education to allow them to be slightly more than working-class.
Admission to the Foundling Hospital, unlike that for the workhouse, was subject to strict conditions when it first opened. Children had to be under the age of two months, and free of venereal disease, scrofula, leprosy, and any other infectious diseases. The child had to be presented to the Hospital by his or her mother, or some other adult known to the family. The prospective foundlings and their adults were placed in the Hospital’s courtroom, and a ballot was drawn. When an adult drew a white ball, their child underwent a medical examination. When an adult drew a black ball, they and their child were turned away—under the watchful eye of the Hospital porter to ensure the child was not abandoned on the Hospital grounds. When an adult drew a red ball, their child was placed on a reserve list, and if another child was rejected due to ill-health or a breach of the age barrier, their child would undertake the medical examination. Children who failed the medical examination or were deemed to be above the age limit for acceptance to the Hospital were returned to their accompanying adult and dismissed.
In 1756, although only one-quarter of the institution’s capacity was occupied at the time, the governors of the Foundling Hospital approved a petition to be sent to the House of Commons requesting funds to expand the charity. Approximately 150 children lived in the Hospital during the early 1750s, when the building come to accommodate around 400, but more and more women were seeking assistance from the charity. The excess capacity within the Hospital was a consequence of the high rates of mortality experienced among the children whilst out at nurse and led to the adoption of the general reception policy in 1756. By the end of the first day of the General Reception period, 117 children had been admitted. Over the course of the first week, 299 children were accepted to the Hospital. The rapid increase in the number of children accepted by the charity led to the establishment of branch hospitals in Chester, Shrewsbury, and at Ackworth in Yorkshire. The General Reception period ended in 1760 after funding was withdrawn.
Poverty and Children’s Health
From the start, the governors of the Hospital went to considerable lengths to protect the children from the infectious diseases because they were so vulnerable. Poor children entering the Foundling Hospital were screened and turned away if they showed any signs of infection. Following their admission, they were sent to wet nurses in the countryside to give them a good start. They remained in the country until they were five and six then they returned to the hospital where they enjoyed a healthy diet including vegetables, meat, fruit and fresh milk from the hospital’s own cow.
The children were also inoculated against the endemic disease smallpox, probably on the advice of Coram’s old friend, Dr Richard Mead who, as well as being a pioneer of smallpox inoculation, was an influential governor of the Hospital and an eminent physician. He played an important role in the early days of the institution, often attending to look after sick children and advising on their care. It was probably down to him that by 1756, of the 247 foundling children who had been inoculated against smallpox, only one had died of the disease.
Native American Children
In his later years back in America, he advocated a scheme for the education of Native American girls. This remarkably enlightened man, “An Evil amongst us here in England is to think Girls having learning given them is not so very Material as for boys to have it. I think and say it is more Material for Girls, when they come to be Mothers, will have the forming of their Children’s lives and if their Mothers be good or bad the children Generally take after them, so that giving Girls a virtuous Education is a vast Advantage to their Posterity as well as to the Publick.”
A Royal Pension
After the loss of his wife, he neglected his private affairs and fell into difficulties. On 20 March 1749, an annuity of £161 was assigned to him, the Prince of Wales subscribing £21 annually. Coram died on 29 March 1751, aged 83, and was buried on 3 April in the chapel of the Foundling Hospital. An inscription was placed there, and a statue of him by William Calder Marshall was erected in front of the building a hundred years later.
For more about the Coram Foundation: https://www.coram.org.uk/our-story
See Also: Child Abandonment in England, 1741–1834: The Case of the London Foundling Hospital
by Claire Phillips, School of Cultural Studies and Humanities, Leeds Beckett University, Leeds LS1 3HE, UK
Genealogy 2019, 3(3), 35; https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy3030035
Poverty in Georgian Britain, Matthew White, 2009, British Library.
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Julia Herdman is a historical fiction author and publisher. specialising in engaging historical fiction books and selected non-fiction. Current projects: Tales of Tooley Street – a series of novels set in 18th century London. Tales of Tooley Street is a work of fiction inspired by a family of apothecary surgeons who lived and worked at No. 65 Tooley Street in the London borough of Southwark. Available Worldwide on Amazon. The Sacred Numbers of The Gods – a book on the archaeology and religion of the Ancient Egyptians.
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