A former Berkhamsted charity released more than 100,000 pages of records dating between 1739 and 1899 to their digital archive on Thursday, October 24.
The digital archive was launched by the UK’s first children’s charity Coram, which was established as the Foundling Hospital in London in 1739. It brings to life the previously untold stories of more than 20,000 children who grew up at the hospital, along with their birth mothers.
In 1935, the Foundling Hospital, the UK’s first dedicated home for babies who could not be cared for by their parents, moved to Berkhamsted on the site that is now Ashlyns School.
Thanks to a major National Lottery Heritage Fund programme, and with the help of nearly 6,500 volunteer transcribers from around the world, almost a quarter of Coram’s Foundling Hospital archive has now been digitised.
The digital archive brings to life the personal stories of the children who grew up in the Foundling Hospital. It features moving accounts of working-class women in the 18th and 19th centuries who had to give their babies up to the care of the hospital.
Dr Carol Homden, CEO of Coram, said: “Coram’s digital Foundling Hospital archive provides a new opportunity to research this fascinating chapter in our history as the first and longest continuing children’s charity and help us better to understand the evolution and continuing needs of children’s social care.”
To search through Coram’s archives, please visit archives.coram.org.uk
Photo credit: Google Maps
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