Annual Lecture 2018 – Shrewsbury Foundling Hospital

Saturday, 24 November 2018

We were delighted to welcome Dr Kate Croft from the University of Birmingham to deliver our annual lecture: ‘Healthy and Expedient’: Childcare and Charity at the Shrewsbury Foundling Hospital 1759-1772 

The Foundling Hospital in London is well-known as an example of eighteenth-century philanthropy and childcare. What is less well-known is the involvement of several branch hospitals that were set up in during the time known as ‘General Reception’. One of these branch hospitals was based in the Midlands, at Shrewsbury in Shropshire. Kate’s talk looked at the history of the Shrewsbury Foundling hospital, its relationship with Thomas Coram’s London hospital, and the lives of children who lived there.