Research Catalog

Title

Orphans of empire : the fate of London's foundlings / Helen Berry.

Author

Berry, Helen, 1969-

Publication

• Oxford : Oxford University Press, [2019]
• ©2019

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xv, 364 pages : illustrations; 22 cm

Summary

Eighteenth-century London was teeming with humanity, and poverty was never far from politeness. Legend has it that, on his daily commute through this thronging metropolis, Captain Thomas Coram witnessed one of the city's most shocking sights-the widespread abandonment of infant corpses by the roadside. He could have just passed by. Instead, he devised a plan to create a charity that would care for these infants; one that was to have enormous consequences for children born into poverty in Britain over the next two hundred years.0Orphans of Empire tells the story of what happened to the thousands of children who were raised at the London Foundling Hospital, Coram's brainchild, which opened in 1741 and grew to become the most famous charity in Georgian England. It provides vivid insights into the lives and fortunes of London's poorest children, from the earliest days of the Foundling Hospital to the mid-Victorian era, when Charles Dickens was moved by his observations of the charity's work to campaign on behalf of orphans. Through the lives of London's foundlings, this book provides readers with a street-level insight into the wider global history of a period of monumental change in British history as the nation grew into the world's leading superpower. Some foundling children were destined for Britain's 'outer Empire' overseas, but many more toiled in the 'inner Empire', labouring in the cotton mills and factories of northern England at the dawn of the new industrial age.0Through extensive archival research, Helen Berry uncovers previously untold stories of what happened to former foundlings, including the suffering and small triumphs they experienced as child workers during the upheavals of the Industrial Revolution. Sometimes, using many different fragments of evidence, the voices of the children themselves emerge.

Subject

• King, George
• Foundling Hospital (London, England) > History
• Foundling Hospital (London, England)
• 1700-1899
• Foundlings > England > London > History > 18th century
• Orphans > England > London > History > 18th century
• Foundlings > England > London > History > 19th century
• Orphans > England > London > History > 19th century
• Child labor > England > London > History > 18th century
• Child labor > England > London > History > 19th century
• Child labor
• Foundlings
• Orphans
• England > London

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Contains bibliographical references and index.

Call Number

JFD 19-4545

ISBN

• 9780198758488
• 0198758480

LCCN

2018950679

OCLC

1045653153

Author

Berry, Helen, 1969- author.

Title

Orphans of empire : the fate of London's foundlings / Helen Berry.

Publisher

Oxford : Oxford University Press, [2019]

Copyright Date

©2019

Edition

First edition.

Type of Content

text

still image

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Contains bibliographical references and index.

Chronological Term

1700-1899

Research Call Number

JFD 19-4545