Mary Dobber and Jane Lowry’s stories

In 1815, the Foundling Hospital received a petition from a soldier requesting the admittance of his daughter. This child’s case reveals precious details about the life of her grandmother, also a Foundling, who was admitted 57 years earlier.

The case of Mary Dobber

On 11 January 1758, a baby was brought to the Foundling Hospital at only a month old. We know nothing about her parents, but a note attached to her admission papers reveals she was handed into the Hospital by ‘the Church wardens and overseers of the poor of Urchfont’ in Wiltshire. The child was given the name Mary Dobber and assigned the number 6977. The following day, she was sent to a nurse in Richmond where she was looked after for the next six years.

Mary’s life in the Hospital featured a significant amount of displacement and upheaval. She was handed in during the period of General Reception (1756-1760), which saw almost 15,000 children admitted. Branch hospitals were established across England to cope with this intake. When Mary returned from her nurse in 1764, she was sent to the Chester branch in Cheshire. When this closed in 1769, she was transferred to the Ackworth branch in Yorkshire. Finally, in 1772, aged 14, Mary returned to the London Hospital.

The Hospital’s Sub-Committee minutes reveal a surprising amount about Mary’s life after her return. Each year from 1776 to 1779, she was recorded as working within the Hospital for a coat-maker called Hester Yargrove. During this period, she received no wages. The minutes from 25 February 1779 reveal the reason she was not sent out on an apprenticeship as other Foundlings were: she was ‘Lame in her left Hip’.

Mary was clearly a skilled worker, however. In 1777, she received a silver thimble, regularly used by the Hospital as a reward for proficiency in sewing or mending. In May 1779, she was gifted a hat by the Matron as recognition of her good behaviour and was listed as one of six disabled Foundling who were ‘capable of getting their Living’.

As a result, she went into domestic service outside the Hospital in September 1779. Unfortunately, her physical health worsened, and in November 1779 she was sent back to the Hospital ‘having lost the use of her Limbs’. A year later, the Matron gave her a position in the laundry. We know she remained in this role until at least 1787. There would be no further record of her in Coram’s Foundling Hospital Archive if it were not for a petition made to the Hospital almost 30 years later.

The case of Jane Lowry

On 8 November 1815, Charles Lowry petitioned for his daughter to be admitted into the Foundling Hospital. Charles was a soldier in the 3^rd Regiment of Guards stationed in Battle Bridge, Essex. His wife had given birth to a daughter on 1 October 1815 and had died shortly after. Conscious that he could be called to active duty abroad, Charles felt he had no other option than to ask the Hospital to take his child.

The Hospital’s Inquirer conducted an interview with Charles, in which he stated that his late wife’s mother was Mary Dobber. The Inquirer’s report revealed that Mary’s work in the Hospital laundry meant she became a ‘good Ironwoman, by which she has since principally earned her bread.’ She also developed a relationship within the Hospital:

 ‘About 26 years ago she was married to Benjamin Broadbent, then an undergardener to this Institution. They have had five or six Children all of whom have died young, except the Mother of this infant…’

Charles stated that Benjamin was a gardener at the Hospital for many years. Marriage records confirm he married Mary Dobber on 16 August 1790 at St. Pancras Parish Church, just a few minutes from the Foundling Hospital.

On 22 November 1815, almost 58 years after Mary was admitted to the Hospital, her granddaughter was accepted. Unusually, the child kept her surname, and was named Jane Lowry (No. 19143). She was sent to the country to be nursed. The next record of her in the archive is from February 1831, when she was apprenticed as a domestic servant to Robert Hodgson, a solicitor in Bishopsgate, London.

Like her grandmother, Jane appears in the Hospital’s Sub-Committee minutes. Her behaviour was not as exemplary, though. In October 1831, Mrs. Hodgson attended a Sub-Committee meeting, where she reported that Jane was ‘obstinate, uncleanly in her person & work, addicted to telling untruths, idle, and generally inattentive to her Duty’. Though Jane was admonished by the committee, Mrs. Hodgson returned the next month to insist that Jane was taken back.

Jane was then assigned to William Bainbridge, a bookmaker in Red Lion Passage, Bloomsbury, London, where she remained until the end of her apprenticeship period in 1836. Apprentice masters provided testimonials to determine whether the Hospital would award Foundlings with a gratuity upon completion. Masters were asked to comment on four areas: honesty, sobriety, diligence, and attention. Although Mr. Bainbridge made no complaints about Jane, the Hospital noted that he only praised her ‘perfect Honesty and Sobriety’. It may have been for this reason, or the previous complaints made against her, that Jane was only awarded four guineas rather than the usual five.

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