Saving London's Abandoned Babies in the Eighteenth Century

In London, as the eighteenth century began, there had been significant recovery from the GreatPlague and the Great Fire in the past three decades. Tracts of the city had been rebuilt andthe population was growing once more.The city, largely through England's success in battles at sea, was taking centre stage in Europe and,critically, through taking the lion's share of the lands of the New World of America and snatchingslave trading rights in West Africa. England had great wealth at its fingertips and London was at theheart of all of it. People flocked to the capital to seek their fortune. Wealthy people investedin the new companies exploiting Africa or setup manufacturing concerns in the city. They moved into large houses in the wealthy area of theStrand and spread into other prosperous areas such as Cavendish Place. Their houses were staffedby teams of domestic servants. At the other end of the income scale, people were leaving their rural homes where traditional jobsas labourers and in the fields were drying up, hoping to make a living in London. So manypeople arrived searching for work that there were too few jobs and many opportunities to beexploited. With no safety net, they had to resort to desperate measures to survive. Babies were abandoned on the mounds of animal and human waste which towered over theovercrowded alleys. Some were dead, others dying. People walked past this tragic sight every dayand chose to do nothing. One man, however, a ship-builder from Lyme, decided on a plan to savethem. The vilification of illegitimate babies and the general disdain for the poor meant that it took ThomasCoram years to garner enough support to get his plan to save the babies off the ground. However,when, in 1739, he was able to found England's first institution for abandoned and illegitimate babies,it became a place for London's high society to be seen. Royalty, politicians and scientists joined the crowds of people who went to the London FoundlingHospital to see the works of Hogarth or listen to Handel perform. It became the most fashionablecharity in London. But even this could not stop the babies dying.