The Foundling Museum

On Sunday I went to the Foundling Museum to hear a lecture about "Stories from the Tokens".  I am interested in the stories behind objects, so this fitted my interests. 

Destitute people gave their children to the Foundling Hospital when they were no longer able to care for their offspring.  When children were given to the Hospital, they were allowed to submit a token to be stored with the admission record, so that, if circumstances changed, and the child was able to reunited with the parent, both parent and child could be certain who each other were.  The admission record was folded into an envelope that contained the token. Tokens varied from scraps of fabric to pierced coins - items of no value to high value.  The Foundling Hospital was founded in the mid 1700s.

Each child, when admitted, was allocated a number, and renamed.  Thus Child 10493, Oliver, was renamed Luke Perkins. 

One of the ways in which the Foundling Hospital raised funds in Victorian times was by identifying which Admissions Records had a hard token inside, opening the Admissions sheet envelope and displaying the tokens - thereby breaking the link between the record and the token.  The researcher observed that curatorial practice had changed considerably, and now would not be separated, even to the extent of unpinning fabric samples to see what was underneath!   However, the researcher had discovered that many admissions records had the impression of the hard token pressed into the paper's surface, and diligent study had reunited quite a few records.

The general display at the Museum gave a lot of detail about who supported the Hospital (particularly Hogarth) and Victorian philanthropists, and the type of diet available to the children.  The food seemed very basic by today's standards, but for destitute children of the 1700s, 3 reliable meals a day must have been amazing, even if only bread or gruel.

Then the following day, I spent time making up cushions from the wool gauze that had been printed with Mum's old cooking scales.  The wool gauze is a wonderful soft material, that feels fantastic, but is too soft to be used on its own.  So I backed it with white cotton, and am making up 3 samples - 12", 14" and 16".  Each cushion is piped around the edge, and I need the practice to get the piping really well applied.  Also I wanted to see the different effects of the same size image on different cushion sizes.  So far I have completed the 12", and half way through the 14".